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REPORT 



COMMITTEE ON SLAVERY, 



Contention of Congregational iitinisters 



MASSACHUSETTS. 
PRESENTED MAY 30, 1849. 



BOSTON: 

PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN, 24 CONGRESS STREET. 

184 9. 



Iz 




CONTENTS. 



Page. 
Historical Sketches of Slavery, particularly in the United States, . .5 

The teaching of the Scrijjtiires on the subject, . . . ... • 13 

The malediction of Noah considered, 16 

Slavery in the times of the Patriarchs 22 

Slaveiy under the law of Moses, . . . ' 25 

How treated by Christ and the Apostles, 37 

Efforts in opposition to Slavery, 57 

Modes of uifluence at the present time 60 

Results of Colonization, particularly as proving the capacity of the Africans 

for self-government, 62 

The moral sentiment of the Christian world, on the subject of Slavery, . 65 

The connection between Slavery and the Constitution of the United States, 68 

The right of property as affected by Emancipation, 79 

Motives which should induce all American citizens to seek the extinction 

of Slavery throughout our land, 83 

Appendix — Extract from the •' Madison Papers," 90 



Extracts from Minutes of the Convention of Congregational Minis- 
ters of Massachusetts. 

Thursday, June 1, 1848. 

Resolved, That a Committee of nine b« appointed to prepare a 
Report, — to be presented at the next Annual Meeting of this Conven- 
tion, — containing a brief history of the rise and progress of Slavery in 
our country, a view of the responsibility of the free States in regard 
to it, and a calm and temperate, but solemn and earnest appeal to the 
community on this momentous subject.* 

The following members were appointed : — Dr. Lowell, of Boston ; 
Dr. Hitchcock, of Randolph ; Dr. Storrs, of Braintree ; Mr. Thomp- 
son, of Salem ; Dr. Worcester, of Salem ; Mr. Briggs, of Plymouth ; 
Mr. Hill, of Worcester ; Dr. Child, of Lowell ; Mr. Lothrop, of 
Boston. 

Thursday, May 31, 1849. 

Voted, That the Committee on Slavery be authorized to publish 
the following resolution in connection with their Report : 

Resolved, That the Convention, having listened to a full Abstract of 
the Document prepared by the Committee appointed last year to con- 
sider and report upon the subject of Slavery, approve of the general 
principles and results of the same; and without holding themselves 
responsible for its particular arguments and illustrations, hereby 
authorize its publication, in such way as said Committee may deem 
best, and can effect, without drawing upon the funds of the Conven- 
tion, which are sacredly appropriated to the relief of the widows and 
orphans of our deceased brethren. 
A true copy. — Attest, 

A. C. Thompson, 

Scribe of Conventiori. 

The " Abstract " to which the last vote of the Convention refers, 
and which was read, the afternoon previous, contained, as is intimated, 
a very full synopsis of the Report. It embodied all the important 
principles and doctrines, premises and conclusions, which are present- 
ed in the following pages ; and, perhaps, if it had been submitted as 

* On motion of Dr. Lowell. 



the Report itself, would alone have been sufficient to assure the Con- 
vention, that the Committee had not lightly regarded the service, to 
which they had been called. 

After considerable discussion in regard to the question of hearing 
the "Abstract" or the whole "Report," it was decided that the 
former should be read. It was received with a very marked expres- 
sion of approval, and was immediately adopted ; — a single hand only 
being raised in the negative, and this not being observed by the 
Chairman, the vote was declared to be unanimous. The whole 
Report was then re-committed, with authority to publish it, provided 
the means of defraying the expense could be secured by the Com- 
mittee. • 

From the animated and earnest response, on all sides, to the senti- 
ments and statements of the " Abstract," the Committee are confident 
that if the time could have been found for a hearing of the full Report — 
and if the whole of our numerous body, exceeding five hundred mem- 
bers, could have been present — the Report itself, in all its length and 
breadth, would have received the sanction and seal of a prompt and 
cordial adoption, by an overwhelming, if not unanimous vote. They 
are sure, that no exception would have been taken, by any considera- 
ble number, to any part of the Report which the Committee them- 
selves would be solicitous to retain, as being indispensable, or quite 
essential, to their main argument and appeal. And they deem it 
proper to add, that they have sought to execute their commission with 
a just sense of the magnitude of their responsibility ; and, as they 
trust, with fervent supplication to the " Father of lights," from whom 
" Cometh down every good gift and every perfect gift." 

By agreement in the Committee, soon after their appointment, each 
member was assigned a specific part of the general subject, in order 
that the work might be more effectually performed, than could reason- 
ably have been anticipated, if the whole labor had been imposed upon 
any one member, or even upon a sub-committee. With a single 
exception, the members have all, more or less, contributed to the 
preparation of the Report. As an unavoidable consequence, it is 
somewhat more detailed and less comprehensive, than it might other- 
wise have been. The Committee would hope, however, that with all 
its defects, it will be found to be essentially homogeneous ; and as a 
whole, not unworthy of the candid and attentive consideration of their 
brethren and of their fellow-citizens generally. 



REPORT. 



In the examination of the subject before us, our attention is 
first called to the History of Slavery. Of this, however, an 
outline is all that we can present ; since a statement of the de- 
tails, in their various connections, would be nothing short of a 
universal history. 

The first slaves, it is believed, were captives in war. These 
were considered entirely at the disposal of their captors, and a 
life-long condition of bondage was probably felt to be an equi- 
table commutation for their lives.* There was also this feature 
of equity in the system, that its oppressions were not restricted 
to a single race, nor dependent upon shades of complexion. 
Nor did slavery in the earliest times present an insuperable 
barrier to ambition, and reduce to a dead level of outward con- 
dition all grades of intellectual and moral power. Thus we 
find Joseph becoming prime minister of Egypt, and this, too, 
without sacrificing his religion to the prejudices of that 
country. 

Though we have no means of determining the exact relation 
and treatment of slaves, at so early a period, yet it is sufficient- 
ly clear, that the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt was of a 
political, rather than of a personal character. They were not 
the private property of individuals, but were compelled to labor 
upon public works. They certainly were not disabled from 
acquiring and retaining private property ; and it is probable, 
that their condition was not worse than that of the lower orders 
of the Egyptians themselves. Moreover, a purely political 
reason is assigned for the oppressions which were heaped upon 
them. After their establishment in the promised land, a system 
of slavery was tolerated among them, but very diflerent in 

*" The Latin word ' servus,' a slave, appears to have been derived from ' servo,' / 
preserve, and to have meant a person whose life was preserved on condition of giving 
his labor to his conqueror; so that slavery, how repulsive soever to our present 
feelings, probably formed at one time an important mitigation of the horrors of bar- 
barism." — Brandc's Encyclopedia, Jlrt. Slavery. 

2 



some important particulars from that existing among their co- 
temporaries in any part of the world. In our examination of 
the Scriptures, with reference to this subject generally, we 
shall have occasion to describe the servitude which existed 
under the laws of Moses, somewhat minutely. It is sufficient, 
therefore, to remark in this place, that the Hebrews were 
iaught by the principles and by the precepts of their religion, 
that personal freedom is an inestimable privilege ; and, that 
wherever involuntary servitude is found to exist, the evils at- 
tending it, whether physical or moral, ought, as far as possible, 
to be mitigated and diminished, in obedience to the law of love 
to God and love to man. In general, the requirements of the 
Mosaic code respecting servants who were of the Hebrews, and 
" bond-men " and " bond-maids " that might be bought of the 
heathen, were so far observed, that the actual condition of this 
class of persons in the land of Israel must have been incompa- 
rably superior to that of the slaves among the Gentiles. And 
the evidence is ample and decisive, that even the system of 
slavery which Moses did not prohibit, but, to a certain extent, 
suffered to remain among the chosen people, was continually 
in conflict with uncompromising antagonistical elements, both 
in the means and ends of the beneficent institutions of the He- 
brew commonwealth. The natural effect of those institutions 
was, to ameliorate the condition of slaves in every respect, and 
ultimately to abolish the practice of slave-holding. It is a fact 
worthy of particular notice in this connection, that if a bond- 
woman bore a child to her master, the child followed the condi- 
tion of the father. The doctrine of partus seqnitur vctitrem, is 
of much later origin. 

In several respects the condition of slaves in Mohammedan 
nations has been similar to that of those among the ancient 
Israelites ; and we shall therefore refer to it in this place, al- 
though out of chronological order. — Under Mohammedan law, 
slaves may compel their masters to set a price for their redemp- 
tion, or to sell ihem to another master. The Turks make no 
distinction in the treatment of children born to them by their 
female slaves and those born in wedlock. The mother of a 
sultan may be a slave. Christian slaves also may obtain their 
freedom by professing Mohammedanism. In general, the treat- 
ment of slaves wherever this religion prevails, appears to par- 
take of the lenity and humanity of the Jewish system. The 
condition of Christian captives in the Barbary States may appear 
to offer an exception ; but the cruelties to which they were 
subjected, may be ascribed either to the desire of revenge, or the 
hope of extorting a larger or speedier ransom. To recent 
movements with reference to slavery in those States, we shall 
refer in another part of our Report. 



Returning now to the ancient nations, — Homer may be cited 
in proof of the early existence of slavery among the Greeks. 
It is to be remembered, that Homer was an Asiatic, and his 
pictures of domestic life have often an Asiatic coloring. At 
most he is only authority for the slavery of captives of war. 
In the nature of things it would seem scarcely possible, that 
slaves could be numerous among a simple and hardy people. 

Slaves in Greece were of two kinds. The Helots of Sparta 
were serfs (adscript! gleboB) who were bound to the soil which 
they cultivated, and on which they paid a certain rent. At 
Corinth and Athens, slaves were chattels personal. They be- 
came in time so numerous and skilful, that every species of 
handicraft was performed by them. With the exception of 
those employed in the mines, they seem to have been not un- 
kindly treated. They were under the protection of law, and 
an Athenian slave could take refuge from the cruelty of his 
owner in the temple of Theseus. He could also compel his 
master to sell him; but whether he could buy his own freedom 
is doubtful. But whatever features of mildness slavery may 
have assumed among the Greeks, can any one, who is at all 
conversant with their history, believe that they ever reaped any 
moral or social advantage from it ? Did any of them enjoy a 
purer or more ennobling freedom, by the ignominious thraldom 
of a portion of their community ? 

We find traces of slavery in the earliest history of Rome. 
Slaves, however, were, at first, very few in number. They 
were captives, were employed in agriculture, and were treated, 
probably, like other servants. We find that they sat at the 
same table with their masters. As luxury increased, the num- 
ber of slaves became larger. And beside the immense multi- 
tude of captives taken in the constant wars of the republic, 
there grew up a regular slave trade, by which slaves were pro- 
cured from Asia and Africa. Nevertheless, the dealers in slaves 
were a disreputable and odious class ; and were not allowed to 
assume the title of merchants. 

While the Roman laws allowed the exercise of great severity 
in the treatment of slaves, even to the extent of taking life, 
there were yet some important advantages enjoyed by the 
slaves, as compared with those of our own country. The slave, 
under certain prescribed conditions, could acquire property. 
There was no bar to his emancipation by his master, and he 
became a citizen as soon as emancipated. When slaves were 
sold, families could not be separated. The general condition 
of the slaves improved gradually with the advance of Chris- 
tianity, and the system itself finally disappeared — either being 
merged in the serfdom of the feudal institutions, or abolished 
altogether. 



8 

From that serfdom to entire enfranchisement, the progress 
was gradual, but steady. The law seems to have leaned strong- 
ly toward liberty; andthe lawyers were strenuous in asserting 
the most liberal interpretation of it. In this way the lord's 
tenure of his serf was rendered as uncertain and vexatious as 
possible. What was unjust was made inconvenient. The 
popular element of the commonwealth asserted itself with more 
and more distinctness ; and serfdom crumbled away like those 
material relics of the past which are disentombed from ancient 
repositories of the dead, by the simple contact of a freer atmos- 
phere. 

In looking at the several species of human bondage, at which 
we have thus glanced, while our sympathies are appealed to by 
their evident injustice, the mind is not impressed with any 
logical inconsequence. They were in keeping with the spirit 
and principles of the times. But in considering the slavery of 
the African race in America, not only are we pained by its in- 
humanity and its open breach of the acknowledged principles 
of justice, but we are sensible that it is an anachronism. 

Slavery in the ancient world, and at the present day in the 
East, appears a natural and necessary part of the political fabric. 
It is supported on every side by kindred institutions, like a 
stone in mosaic. Natural justice has been the same in all ages; 
but the limits to the view which each generation is enabled to 
take of it, are in a great measure defined by habit, education 
and surrounding circumstances. Thus we find even Luther, 
taking sides against the insurgent serfs, because the absorption 
of his mind in one object, as we may conjecture, did not allow 
him to perceive, that their movement was a fair political corol- 
lary from the premises which he had established in spiritual 
matters. In this way we may conceive, that certain forms of 
the social system which the pure reason must disown, may still 
be in unison with the demands of the reasoning faculty, as 
logical deductions from premises universally granted. But 
American slavery has no such congruity. On the contrary, it 
is in direct antagonism to the premises on which our govern- 
ment rests; and- involves us every day in fresh contradictions 
and compromises. 

We have now reached the point in our survey where it is 
proper to state the leading facts in the history of American 
Slavery — passing at once from the ancient to the modern aspect 
of the institution. 

The first negroes, enslaved by a Christian nation iu modern 
times, were brought to Portugal, about fifty years before the 
discovery of America. Some of their enslavers, in the first 
instance, were actuated by motives of benevolence ; conceiving 
that the simple ceremony of baptism secured their eternal sal- 



vation. From this chance seed, nevertheless, sprang the deadly- 
upas of American slavery. The Portuguese gradually establish- 
ed a traffic in slaves, but not upon a very large scale ; for, except 
as articles of luxury, there could be no great demand for them 
in Spain and Portugal. But the discovery of America, by open- 
ing new fields for their labor, soon rendered the business per- 
manent and profitable. 

As long as Isabella lived, her womanly sympathies were in- 
terposed between the happy and gentle islanders of the Caribbean 
group and their rapacious invaders. She succeeded in prevent- 
ing their enslavement, at least in name. Bnt Spain was far off 
and the gold mines were near. A system of involuntary and 
unrequited labor soon arose, which, shortly after the death of 
Isabella, assumed the name, as it had already displayed all the 
attributes, of Slavery. History has but faintly recorded (for 
words are weak) the atrocities of which the Spanish colonists 
were guilty toward that race which Columbus described as 
Christians in all but the name. They who read the past wisely, 
should not forget how Hayti, where slavery was first planted, 
went through a fearful purgation of blood and flame. 

It is well known, that, when in the sixteenth century it 
was proposed to different powers of Europe to legislate for the 
transportation of Africans, as slaves, to supply the alleged 
necessities of the colonies in America, the purpose shocked the 
moral sense of all Christendom ! And yet not a thousandth 
part of the atrocities of the slave-trade had begun to be known 
or imagined. It was only by the most artful and unwearied 
management and deception, that the sovereigns of Spain, France 
and England, were induced to give a partial and restricted in- 
dulgence to the detestable traffic. A dispute between the 
Franciscans who encouraged and the Dominicans who denoun- 
ced both the slave-trade and the system of slavery, was adjudi- 
cated by Leo X., whose righteous decision was, that ^^ not only 
the Christian religion^ hut nature herself^ cried out against 
Slavery f" 

The desire of gold had become only more insatiable by a par- 
tial satisfaction. The mines demanded new victims, and, the 
natives having been literally annihilated, the loss must be sup- 
plied from Africa. For more than three hundred years the 
trade in human flesh has been carried on. For more than three 
hundred years the slave-ship has been almost the only messen- 
ger which Christendom has sent forth to Africa. Denounced 
by all civilized men, this accursed traffic has still continued to 
flourish, and must continue while the system that gives it life 
is tolerated. It should be for our instruction and our gratitude, 
that our New England ancestors, true to their principles and 
their piety, strenuously, though ineffectually, withstood the in- 
2* 



10 

troduction of slaves amongst them. But subject as they were 
to the overshadowing power of the mother country, they could 
not do as they would ; and a minority of the population pre- 
vailed against a decided preponderance of public sentiment. 

Sir John Hawkins was the first Englishman who made a 
voyage to the African coast for slaves. In his second venture 
Royalty went partner. Slaves were introduced into the Eng- 
lish colonies in America as soon as it became profitable to 
introduce them. In Massachusetts the system of slavery never 
took kindly root, and the first efforts for its abolition were made 
here. Early in the history of the colony, the captain of a 
vessel who had brought some negroes hither from Africa was 
ordered by the General Court to carry them back ; and by the 
very act which gave her existence as an independent State, 
Massachusetts proclaimed liberty to her bond-men. 

If it be undeniable, that a portion of New England commerce 
for many years participated largely in the " merchandize " of 
men, it was with no better defence than " the son of perdition" 
could have made for betraying his Lord " to be crucified and 
slain." The public sentiment of Massachusetts, and of New 
England generally, was irreconcilably opposed to the principle 
and the practice of slave-holding ; and the intervals were brief, if 
they occurred at all, in which there were not in the pulpit and 
out of the pulpit, unsleeping and indomitable witnesses for truth 
and righteousness, who " lifted up their voice like a trumpet " 
and " spared not," while a portion of their fellow-citizens, with 
a few "brethren in the Lord," delayed to loose the bonds of 
wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppress- 
ed go free. 

But the two great crises in the history of American slavery, 
and the consideration of which will be more immediately to 
our purpose, were the adoption of the Federal Constitution in 
1787, and the admission of Missouri as a slave State in 1S20. 

After the war of the Revolution had been brought to an end, 
it was very generally felt that the holding of slaves was grossly 
inconsistent with the principles on which were grounded our 
own claims to freedom. Though the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, inspired by the sublimity of the occasion, laid down 
axioms in advance of the public opinion and practice of the 
day, it accorded well with the undefined feeling of an excited 
people. But when the ennobling and invigorating impulse of a 
struggle for liberty was withdrawn from men's minds and al- 
lowed them to recede to their habitual level, and when selfish 
interests were enabled to renew their hold, it was found that 
the love of gain had lost none of its power; and the conduct 
of the several States in regard to slavery, was far too much 
graduated by the scale of profit. In the Eastern States, heredi- 



11 

tary or acquired principles of justice and mercy, unquestionably 
exerted a paramount influence to bring about emancipation. 
But we cannot concede them an unqualified commendation on 
this score ; because a supposed commercial interest was permit- 
ted to prevail against the decisions of public sentiment, in re- 
gard to the impolicy and wickedness of the slave-trade. 

We have called the period of the adoption of the Federal 
Constitution a crisis in the history of slavery ; because at that 
time the slave-power, which has since made such formidable 
usurpations, was a trembling ])etitioner for the license even to 
exist at all. 

A reference to the " Madison Papers" will show, that a con- 
tinuance of the slave-trade till the year ISOS, was conceded to 
the clamors of South Carolina and Georgia; and we think it 
clear even from such fragments as remain to us of the debates 
of the Federal Convention, that the majority of the members 
of that body looked upon the extinction of the slave-trade and 
of slavery as synonymous. And it was universally supposed at 
that time, that the number of slaves could onlybe kept from di- 
minishing by fresh importations. For this reason the word 
Slave was carefully excluded from the Constitution, that, Avhen 
Human Bondage became a thing of the past, no trace of its ex- 
istence, even, much less suspicion of connivance, should leave 
its stain upon that instrument. " I think it wrong to admit in 
the Constitution the idea that there can be property in man." 
So said Mr. Madison in the Convention, and in so saying he 
echoed the sentiments of a large majority of the members from 
all sections of the country. Throughout the debates on the 
slavery-clauses of the Constitution, it is very clear, that the 
advocates of slavery acted entirely on the defensive. It could 
not well be otherwise, since almost every statesman, eminent 
in those early days of the Republic, has left on record his un- 
qualified condemnation of the system. Some of the heartiest 
denouncers of slavery were from Maryland and Virginia. 

But in the thirty-three years which had elapsed between 
the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and the admission of 
Missouri, the posture of aff'airs had entirely changed. Slavery 
now for the first time became aggressive, and the protection of 
liberty which was intended to be the rule of our government, 
had grown to be the rare exception. By the stopping of the 
foreign slave-trade, and the stimulus which the domestic traffic 
received from the increase of territory, Maryland and Virginia 
had been seduced from their allegiance to higher and humane 
sentiments, and had already become the Guinea Coast of Amer- 
ica. The admission of Missouri, by what was falsely termed a 
compromise, for there can be no compromise with what is abso- 
lutely wrong, no truce between God and Satan, — threw at 



once the prestige of victory and a control of the balance of 
power upon the side of the slave-holders. Since that fatal and 
perfidious day, Freedom has been constantly driven to the wall. 
A small aristocracy, insignificant in point of numbers, and justly 
obnoxious to Christian freemen from the basis on which their 
claim to superiority rests, scattered over a wide extent of terri- 
tory and only compact in a strenuous devotion to a common in- 
terest, have swayed the destinies of this mighty nation, and 
shaped its future, as far as possible, to a necessary coincidence 
with its mistaken and repented past. 

In comparing American slavery with the modes of servitude 
which have existed among other nations and in other ages of 
the world, we find that, although agreeing with some of them 
in many particulars, it differs in one important point from them 
all. Slavery, wherever and whenever it has elsewhere existed, 
has been as impartial as death. There was no one whom the 
chances of fortune or war might not one day or other reduce to 
bondage. But with us, complexion has been made the criterion 
for determining the capacity of a human being for freedom. It 
is a singular fact, that, while the African physiognomy and com- 
plexion are such as to unfit their unhappy possessor for taking 
care of himself, and such also as to render liberty a curse, yet 
the reward with which the American master repays any act of 
peculiar devotion or fidelity on the part of his slave, is emanci- 
pation ! 

Another distinguishing characteristic of American slavery is, 
that it is not only permitted but actually fostered by a nation 
foremost of all in receiving, publishing, and, in many respects, 
exemplifying the great idea of Human Brotherhood. It is con- 
generous with nothing in our political system, and is a constant 
reproach to our profession of the religion of Christ. The 
slave-holder of ancient times, if called on for his title, appealed 
to what was then the acknowledged law of nations, which 
gave the captor power of life and death over his captive. " All 
that a man hath will he give for his life," and accordingly a 
species of contract was supposed between master and slave, the 
slave rendering service as an equivalent for life. It is vain to 
seek any such foundation for American slavery. Here the 
slave-holder justifies himself, either by the color of his victim, 
claiming to be only a fulfiller of the prophecies and an instru- 
ment of God's vengeance ; or he appeals to the fact, that his 
inheritance of oppression was devolved upon him from his an- 
cestors ; thus endeavoring to defend the continuance of a wrong, 
by showing that it is of ancient date, and to give injustice a 
title by prescription. Called upon to produce his original title, 
he is forced to go back to the jus gentium of lawless savages 
on the coast of Africa, or is driven finally to seek refuge behind 



13 

the right of the strongest ; a right accidental in its nature, and 
pecuhar neither to white nor black, but liable to change hands, 
as it already has done in Hayti. 



We here bring this preliminary part of our Report to a close. 
By presenting an outline of its history, we have hoped to give 
a clear and just idea of Slavery as it has actually existed in dif- 
ferent ages and nations of the world, from the beginning to this 
day. But there is one part of that history which, connected 
as it is with Divine Revelation, constitutes a topic by itself, 
and demands an extended and careful examination. We refer 
to what is contained in the Scriptures on the subject. We have 
devoted much attention to this branch of our inquiry, — deeming 
it of the highest importance ; and w^e proceed to exhibit at 
length the train of investigation which we have pursued, with 
the results which we have reached. 



In vindication of Slavery, an appeal has often been made to 
the Scriptures, as if the slave-holder had authority from God, to 
retain and employ his slaves, at his option and discretion. On 
the other hand, it has been affirmed by some, that the Scrip- 
tures, not only contain no warrant for modern slave-holding, 
but that slavery itself had no existence among the ancient He- 
brews, or in the families of any who are recognized as God's 
sincere friends, — whether under the Mosaic or the Christian 
dispensation. Is the truth in either of these extremes ? We 
think not. 

There are those who cannot account for the toleration or per- 
mission of slavery, among the Hebrews, without impeaching the 
Divine character. With others, the great difficulty is, to explain 
the commonly received interpretations of the Word of God, — if 
the relation of master and slave has always implied guilt on the 
part of the master. And there is certainly an apparent, if not 
real conflict between natural and revealed religion, in some of 
the views \vhich have often been presented, both on the one 
side and the other of the question, — '-Whether it be morally 
right to hold our fellow man as a slave." 

In searching the Scriptures our object has been to ascertain, 
as nearly as possible, the truth and the whole truth, in answer 
to the question, which we regard as the grand question of all, 
viz. — " Do the Scriptures sanction slavery, as it exists in the 
United States, and as it has here been legalized .^" With one 
voice, and without any reservation or qualification, we are pre- 
pared to answer, NO. 



14 

We are unable to find any contradiction in the Scriptures to 
the self-evident truth of reason, and of natural reUgion, that 
there is no natural right in the relation of master and slave. — , 
Have we not all one Father? — Still, it may, and as we think, 
must be conceded, that circumstances, under the providence of 
the Supreme Disposer of events, may so far modify natural 
right or natural wrong, that, while a system or an institution 
may be unwarranted and criminal, — the personal guilt and inno- 
cence of individuals may be materially atfected by their social 
position, their knowledge, their motives, feelings and purposes. 

As another preliminary suggestion, we deem it important to 
remark, that, as the present use of words may be no guide to 
their etymology, and as neither present use nor etymology may 
determine or indicate their true meaning, at certain periods of 
national progress, — it is illogical and unsafe to infer what slavery 
was at the beginning, from what it has since become ; or that 
slavery in any given example, is or was the same as in any 
other example. 

Slavery, at the present day, is every where understood to im- 
ply coercion ; and coercion of that kind and degree, to which, 
in general, none would submit, if they were not kept in subjec- 
tion by laws framed for the express purpose of protecting the 
master, against the assertion of natural rights by the slave, and 
his claim to be regarded as a fellow-man and a brother. They 
produce as their legitimate effect, a degraded and demoralizing 
inferiority and disability of social condition ; or, at least, their 
whole tendency is to aggravate and perpetuate such a condi- 
tion. 

Hence we may well inquire whether the Scriptures of God, 
" who giveth to all life, and breath, and all things, and hath 
made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face 
of the earth," are rightly interpreted, if supposed to contain 
any warrant for such laws ; and thus a relation or social institu- 
tion, which it would not be possible to sustain without them, 
can urge in its behalf the sanction of Divine approval. 

Upon some subjects of importance, it is well known, the 
Scriptures are silent; upon others the instruction is explicit and' 
full ; while upon others still it is incidental or inferential. Of 
this latter kind is the witness respecting slavery. The relation 
of master and slave is neither required nor forbidden, by express 
commandment or ordinance, under the Mosaic or the Christian 
dispensation. And although tolerated and legalized, in the 
case of the Hebrews, but with most important limitations and 
counter-working provisions, slavery has no commendation or 
benediction from any of the " holy men of God, who spake as 
they were moved by the Holy Ghost." There is thus a wide 
difference between the teaching of revealed truth, in regard to 



16 

the relation of master and slave, and that which pertains to 
civil government. Civil government is manifestly ordained of 
God. Loyalty in subjects is both enjoined and blessed. But 
the condition of the slave is always presented to us, as having 
no advantages but in a choice of evils ; and as being most ob- 
viously, in a greater or less degree, a calamity or a curse ; 
whatever may be inferred, in respect to the lawfulness or sin- 
fulness of the relation of the master. 

We cannot assent, therefore, to the bold statement of a very 
able writer in one of our reUgious periodicals, namely, that 
"slave-holding, in the scriptural view of it, belongs to a class of 
things indifferent, of things neither forbidden nor commanded 
in the word of God, which are right or wrong according to 
circumstances. It is like despotism in the state." * 

But we would earnestly inquire, Where has God taught us, 
that all things are " indifferent," if neither forbidden nor com- 
manded by any express statute or prescription ? And may it 
not be a very important inquiry, whether we have God's per- 
mission to do, what he has neither commanded nor forbidden 
us ? 

Suppose the present incumbent of the chair of the Presidency 
of the United States was able to make himself a dictator or 
emperor ; and after establishing himself in power, should evi- 
dently aim to administer his government so as to command 
respect and secure esteem, as one of the greatest benefactors of 
his race ? Could it be said, that he has a right to reign over 
this nation, because he does reign ; or because civil govern- 
ment is of divine authority ? And if his adherents should ap- 
peal to the Scriptures, to support his despotism — in opposition to 
the right of the people to rule themselves — would it be enough 
for them to say, " The powers that be, are ordained of God ? " 

We may concede, that the relation of a master to his slave 
may not always imply guilt in the master. But the right 
which is assumed to belong to him, by that relation, we utterly 
deny. Neither are we required, if allowed, in our moral esti- 
mate of slavery, to separate the relation from its accidents or 
incidents, as they may be called ; and which are at present 
associated with the right, as claimed and exercised, hardly less 
intimately and invariably, than if inseparable properties, or, at 
least, unavoidable accompaniments. 

And besides, if fully granted, that personal slave-holding, as 
distinguished from slavery, does not always imply guilt, we are 
entirely sure, that no slave-holder can be safe in assuming or 
presuming that he himself is without sin. It is a perilous con- 

* Biblical Repertory, Jan. 1849, Art. I. 



W^ 



16 

elusion, that there is sin in 720 case, because in some cases 
there inay he none. 

After God had created the founders of the race, " he blessed 
them, and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replen- 
ish the earth and subdue it : and have dominion over the fish 
of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living 
thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold I 
have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the 
face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of 
a tree yielding seed ; to you it shall be for meat." Can the re- 
lation of master and slave, or the right of slave-holding, be found 
in this ordinance ? And, moreover, it may be asked with much 
emphasis, How can slaves fulfill the purposes of this ordinance, 
according to its unquestionable import, both in respect to duty 
and privilege, in extending the domain of an enlightened and 
progressive civilization ? 

When Noah and his family came forth from the ark, God 
said unto them, " Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the 
earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you, shall be upon 
every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon 
all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the 
sea ; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing 
that liveth shall be meat for you ; even as the green herb have 
I given you all things." The right to use animals as " the 
green herb " for human sustenance, is the only additional right 
which God gave to Noah and his sons. The right of slave- 
holding is not in this ordinance, any more than in that delivered 
to Adam. 

The original grant of property and dominion to the human 
race, is gratefully celebrated in the Psalms. (Ps. viii.) It is 
also introduced into the Epistle to the Hebrews, in a direct 
citation of the words of David. (Ch. ii.) But in neither case 
is there the least allusion to any such power or property, as that 
which is claimed as the right of a master, in respect to his 
slave. 

If now such power or property has not been granted in either 
of those two great comprehensive ordinances of the Most High, 
— where else in the holy Scriptures, which are the Magna and 
the Maxima Charta of human rights and privileges, can the 
right of slave-holding be found ? 

■ The first allusion to slavery, whether personal or political, is 
in the language of Noah, when, by a prophetic malediction, he 
so memorably rebuked the oflence of Ham. " Cursed be Ca- 
naan ; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." 
These words of the father, but not the law-giver of all existing 
nations and families, have sometimes been most singularly mis- 
understood, or inexcusably perverted. In connection or con- 



17 

trast with the blessing upon Shem and Japheth, they have been 
explained, as if Noah instituted slavery, and by divine direction 
gave liberty to a part of his descendants, to enslave another 
part, thronghout all generations. And by assnn)ing that the 
Africans now in bondage are the posterity of Canaan, it has 
been maintained by some, that those who claim them as their 
property, and use them at their will, are entirely justified by 
the purpose of God. It has actually been pretended, that the 
Supreme Disposer of all things has decreed their perpetual ser- 
vitude, to teach the world the duty of filial reverence and of 
civil obedience ! 

Such pretensions are too preposterous for sober denial. They 
involve absurdity upon absurdity, most palpable and most 
flagrant. It might just as rationally be maintained, that Noah 
gave plenary indulgence to excess of wine and to drunkenness, 
in all ages to the end of the world. Moreover, all right and 
wrong, all good and evil would become conventional and con- 
vertible names, or be mere distinctions without differences, if 
the words of prophecy were to be construed as justifying that 
mode of conduct, which, under divine control, ensures fulfil- 
ment, according to " the foreknowledge and determinate coun- 
sel of God." It could never have been, as it was, "with wick- 
ed hands,^^ that " the Holy One and the Just " " was crucified 
and slain." And never could it have been said : " Truly the 
Son of Man goeth as it was determined : but wo unto that man 
by whom he is betrayed ! " 

The predictions of the prophets, and divine purposes, so far 
as made known, may be employed as encouragements to good 
and as dissuasives from evil. But it is in the precepts^ or re- 
quirements of God, not in his purposes, nor in predictions, that 
we have the rule of duty and the standard of rectitude. Hence 
the language of Noah, when, by an inspired foreknowledge of 
the calamitous condition of the guilty and polluted Canaanites, 
he spoke as he did, in signal reproof of filial dishonor, furnished 
not the slightest warrant for the posterity of Shem and Japheth 
with all the other sons of Ham also, to enslave them, or in any 
way to oppress them. The prediction of the bondage of the 
Hebrews in Egypt, who were of the descendants of Shem, was 
just as fully a divine warrant to Pharaoh, to " set task masters 
over them," and " make their lives bitter with hard bondage, 
in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the 
field." 

There is no apology for any mistake, as it regards the na- 
tional identity of the descendants of Canaan. It is written in 
the Scriptures, that " Canaan begat Sidon his first-born, and 
Heth, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite, and 
the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite, and the Arvadite, 
3 



18 

and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite ; and afterward were 
the faniihes of the Canaanites spread abroad. And the border 
of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, 
unto Gaza ; as thou goest unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and 
Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha." (Gen. x. 15-19. 
Comp. I Chron. i. 13-16.) 

As a race of men, they had become exceedingly corrupt, in 
the age when the Hebrews were led out of Egypt, to take pos- 
session of the land, which had been promised to Abraham and 
his seed. " The land," said the voice of God to Moses, " is 
defiled : therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and 
the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants." (Lev. xviii. 25.) 
It is not for any one to say, that this iniquity had no connection 
with the vile character of Ham, or of Canaan, who may have 
been a direct partaker of the sin, which indicated such ungod- 
liness and uncleanness. There may have been also some spe- 
cial design in the record of the curse upon Canaan, both for the 
instruction and admonition of the chosen people ; as they were 
then marching towards the country of the Canaanites, under 
the most solemn command to exterminate them. As the twelve 
tribes then were, and as the world was, through the abounding 
prevalence of idolatry, such signal inflictions of divine displeas- 
ure as they were called to witness, would appear to have been 
indispensable to convey to their minds a distinct and salutary 
perception of divine holiness and justice, and the consequent 
demerit of sin. 

But there is no intimation that the Hebrews had their right 
to the land in consequence of the curse of Noah, or that the 
woes which God had determined to inflict, were retrospectively 
and primarily to be considered a visitation of the iniquity of the 
fathers upon the children. It was most evidently for their own 
wickedness that the Canaanites were doomed to such a punish- 
ment, in the sight of all nations. For any thing that is written, 
therefore, or is fairly implied to the contrary, we must regard 
the offence of their progenitor, or progenitors, not as the cause 
of their punishment, but as the occasion of its being foretold. 
And the manner in which it was foretold, would naturally be 
a most humiliating rebuke to the off"ender, and a fearful warn- 
ing to his posterity. 

It is thus, that we interpret the offence of Hezekiah, and 
the judgment which was denounced, when he displayed his 
treasures to the messengers of the king of Babylon. His in- 
discretion and his pride were the occasion of the prophecy, 
but not the cause of the future sorrows of his children and his 
people. 

In further confirmation of this view of the nature of the 
curse of Noah upon Canaan, we may cite the example of Jacob, 



19 

in his dying rebuke of Simeon and Levi : — " Cursed be their 
anger, for it was fierce : and their wrath, for it was cruel : I 
will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel." In the 
actual result, the sons of Levi, although " scattered in Israel," 
were recompensed for their pre-eminent faithfulness, (Ex, xxxii.) 
and exalted to the highest distinction of office and privilege. 
And the tribe of Simeon appears in history, under no marked 
disadvantages or reproaches, as compared with the other tribes ; 
although " their inheritance was within the i'nheritance of the 
children of Judah." (Josh, xix.) It is obvious then that such 
a malediction as that of Noah, did not in any way determine, 
either the calamitous condition or the detestable character of 
those who were lineally designated as the sufferers. 

We are not to suppose that they were simiers above all men, 
or that the calamities which came upon them were unparallel- 
ed and unequalled. In the days of Abraham, before " the 
iniquity of the Amorites " was I'full," (Gen. xv. 16.) there 
were such men in the land as Abimelech of Gerar, and Mel- 
chizedck of Salem. The latter, certainly, must be numbered 
among the most "excellent," who have ever appeared " in the 
earth." He " received tithes of Abraham and blessed him that 
had the promises. And without all contradiction, the less is 
blessed of the better." 

The "seven nations " in Canaan were not wholly destroyed. 
" The Lord thy God," it was written, " will put out those na- 
tions before thee by little and Httle : thou mayest not consume 
them at once, lest the beast of the field increase upon thee." 
(Deut. vii. 22.) The Jebusites held possession of a fortified 
eminence at Salem, or Jerusalem, until overpowered by David. 
And when Solomon needed a kind of labor, in erecting the 
temple, which he either was unable or unwilling to exact of 
his own people, he saw fit to " levy a tribute of bond-service " 
upon " the children that were left in the land," " of the 
Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites." (1 Kings 
ix.) 

Powerful nations, also, were of the same immediate family 
origin, as those that were subjugated by the Hebrews. They 
had many slaves, and some of them " traded the persons of 
men,'^ as they did ^'vessels of brass.'" (Ezek. xxvii. 13.) Such 
were the Syrians of Hamath, with a capital city rivalling Da- 
mascus ; the Sidonians and Tyrians and the Phoenicians, so 
skilled in arts, so adventurous in commerce and colonization ; 
and the Carthaginians, who, but for an oversight in their victo- 
rious Hannibal, might have dictated laws to Rome, and per- 
chance to the known world. 

All these', however, were in process of time subjected to na- 
tions yet more powerful, or more successful in war ; and were 



20 

iTiade to experience the severest forms of political servitude. 
Many among them were carried into captivity by their con- 
querors. A part or all were reduced, as we cannot doubt, to the 
lowest and most wretched condition of personal slavery. Thus 
in Palestine and out of Palestine, the prediction of Noah had a 
most ample fulfilment, long before ancient history had reached 
its last chapter. 

And is it now to be seriously maintained, that Africans can 
be enslaved by Divine permission, in consequence of the 
"curse" pronounced upon Canaan, four thousand years ago ? 
Let it first be shown, that any of them are Cmiaanites ! It 
would be impossible to prove their descent from eitlier of the 
sons of Ham. The Egyptians, as is indicated by their ancient 
name, may have been so descended. The colored race are 
quite as probably from Shem, if not from Japheth. And the 
Egyptians, with all the changes that have passed over them, 
have been slave-holders from the remotest antiquity. 

There has been far too much taken for granted, in what has 
been so often repeated concerning an alleged division of the 
earth by Noah, soon after the waters of the flood had retired. 
An apportionment of Africa to Ham, of Europe to Japheth, and 
of Asia to Sliem, is all a fiction on the very face of it ; and 
none the less ridiculous, from the imposing gravity with which 
it has been taught, as if an axiom of geographical science. 
We have an authentic memorial of " a division of the earth," 
so called, which took place in the days of Peleg ; or rather, 
perhaps, more strictly speaking, in the days of Eber, his father, 
who may be understood to have given the name, as a significant 
token of the event. Peleg was in the sixth generation from 
Noah. Not far from the time of his birth, probably, there ap- 
pears to have been a convention of the leaders of difl^erent fam- 
ilies, and an amicable distribution and settlement of territorial 
limits. It was a great event for the times. We may suppose 
it to have been peculiarly interesting to the Hebrews, from their 
ancestral relationship ; and thus to have been sj)ecially noted in 
their genealogical tables. But no one, who has studied the 
Scriptures ititelligently, needs to be informed, that "the earth" 
does not always mean all of it, or even a hundredth part of it. 
And we have no more reliable evidence of any i)ersonal appor- 
tionment of the three great divisions of the eastern hemisphere, 
between the three sons of Noah, or their descendants respec- 
tively, at any period whatever, than for the very learned and 
discriminating hypothesis, which has attributed the sable com- 
plexion of the negro to the mark of Cain, and hence deduced 
an argument for African enslavement ! 

In truth and sobernesS; it may be affirmed, that the whitest 
slave-holder of modern Christendom is as likely to have the 



2* 

blood of Hani or of Canaan in his veins, as is any one, who, 
of ail his slaves, may be the most 

" guilty of a skin 
Not colour'd like liis own ; and * * 

* * * * for such a worthy cause 
Doomed and devoted * * as his lawful prey." 

With no more success, and with scarcely less of propriety, 
would a serious attempt be made, to identify the Congoes or 
any tribe of Africa, with Cain, the son of Adam, than with 
Canaan, the son of Ham ! 

We have before remarked, that the first allusion in the Scrip- 
tures to the subject of slavery, is found in that prophetic maledic- 
tion. But the language of Noah would have been unintelligible, 
and therefore without effect as a rebuke for the offence, which 
was the occasion of its being uttered, if both he and his sons had 
not known of the existence of some mode of servitude, previ- 
ous to the deluge. Who, then, it may be asked, were, in all 
probability, the first slave-holders? Were they of Seth and 
Enoch, the ancestors of Noah ? Among whom would slavery 
have begun so naturally, as among the descendants of him, 
whose hands were crimsoned with the fraternal blood of right- 
eous Abel ? It certainly did not commence with the curse of 
Noah. And whence did it come, but from that "corruption" 
which so dreadfully abounded, when "the earth was filled 
with violence ; " " and it repented the Lord that he had made 
man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart ? " Whence 
also came polygamy and divorce? 

The same essential spirit of "corruption" and "violence" 
was manifested among the descendants of Noah, before the 
living witnesses of the deluge could have ceased from the 
earth. And if the truth could be known, we have little doubt, 
that the first or the most responsible name for example and author- 
ity, in the reappearance of the custom or institution, would be 
that of Nimrod, a grandson of Ham, who " began to be a mighty 
one in the earth," and was the prototype of all the Nebuchad- 
nezzars and Napoleons, great and small, that have since arisen, 
to scourge their fellow men. 

He is said to have been " a mighty hunter before the Lord; 
and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and 
Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar." (Gen. x. 9, 10.) 
His name is from a Hebrew word, which signifies " to be diso- 
bedient, perverse, to rebel." And the Targum, on 1 Chron. i. 
10, as quoted in a modern commentary, says of him, — " Nim- 
rod began to be a mighty man in sin, a murderer of innocent 
men, and a rebel before the Lord." The Jerusalem Targum 
says, " He was mighty in hunting, (or in prey,) and in sin be- 
fore God ; for he was a hunter of the children of men in their 
3* 



22 

languages; and he said unto them, Depart from the religion 
of Shern ; and cleave to the institutes of Ninirod.'^ The same 
view is taken of him, in other ancient- commentaries. " And 
the word, which we render hiaiter,^' says one of the most learn- 
ed of English expositors, " signifies ^?'ey, and is apphed in the 
Scriptures to the hunting of men, by persecution, oppression 
and tyranny. See Jer. xvi. 16 ; Lam. iii. 52 ; Prov. i. 17, 18 ; 
Zeph. iii. 6. Hence it is hkely, that Nimrod, having acquired 
power, used it in tyranny and oppression." 

As men departed from the worship of the true God, they appear 
to have also departed from love to one another. Practices and 
customs were introduced and established, which were too con- 
genial to their selfish passions and pro})ensities, not to bfe exten- 
sively adopted by those, who had the power and the opportunity. 
As idolatry prevailed, man would depreciate in the estimation 
of his fellow man, and no just ideas of his standing and his 
worth, as "made after the similitude of God," would have 
influence or even be conceived, but in very small measure and 
within very narrow limits. 

In such a state of society, if society it can be called, which, 
in the early ages after the deluge, existed in the countries 
watered by the Euphrates and the Tigris, it is not surprising, 
that captives in war should have been held in bondage ; and 
that the rank of the mighty or the opulent should be estimated 
in part by the number of their men-servants and maid-servants. 
Neither is it at all unaccountable, that men who " feared God," 
"and through faith, wrought righteousness," like Abraham and 
Job, should have so far conformed, as it would seem that they 
did, to what appears to have been the universal custom, in the 
larger households of Mesopotamia, Arabia, Egypt, and all other 
lands, during the age which is commonly known as the patri- 
archal. 

The Man of Uz " was the greatest of all the men of the east.'^ 
Whether the men-servants and maid-servants of his " very 
great household," were slaves, it might not be found easy 
to show by such kind of proof, as would be demanded by the 
rules of legal evidence. The original terms, like our own word 
" servant,^' may or may not have denoted bond-men and bond- 
maids. But all the circumstances render it highly probable, 
that very many in his household were "bought with his mon- 
ey," or were " born in his house," as were the servants of 
Abraham, and were held by him as a part of his estate, some- 
what as the serfs of Russia and Poland, or as those in servile 
tenure under the feudal laio of the Middle Ages, who might be 
" annexed to the manor," or might be " annexed to the person 
of their lord, and be transferable from one to another." Of his 
feelings towards them, his recognition of their natural rights, 



23 

and his conscientious endeavors to treat them, as a man who 
would always " do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with 
God," — a most honorable testimony has been recorded, as if 
none could have the effrontery to gainsay it, although the lan- 
guage of his own lips : " If I did despise the cause of my man- 
servant or of my maid-servant, when they contended with me ; 
what then shall I do when God riseth up? And when he vis- 
itetli, what shall I answer him? Did not he that madk me in 

THE WOMB MAKE HIM? AnD DID NOT ONE FASHION US IN THE 

WOMB?" (Job xxxi. 13-15.) 

The mode of life of the Man of Uz may be very well illus- 
trated, by that which is still seen in that of a rich and power- 
ful Arabic Emir or Sheik. It was, doubtless, intermediate be- 
tween the nomadic pastoral life, and the settled manner of or- 
ganized communities like ours. Very much the same was that 
of Abraham, who may have lived before him, or, as is quite 
probable, in the same age. 

Some of the servants of the patriarch, perhaps the most, were 
received as presents ; as those given him by Pharaoh and 
Abimelech. (Gen. xii. 16 ; xx. 14.) Many were " born in his 
house."" But a part may have been " bought with his money." 
(Gen. xviii. 13.) Whether any of these were bought of third 
persons, who were traffickers in men, as merchandise, is much 
doubted by some, and is denied by others, who, on the con- 
trary, believe that he bought none, except by their own choice, 
or for their own benefit. That any of the patriarchs ever sold 
any of their servants, does not appear at all probable, from any 
thing which is found in their history. 

Daring the great famine in the days of Joseph, a multitude 
of the Egyptians were glad to sell their lands and themselves 
for bread. 

In those early times of lawlessness and rapine, the poor and 
defenceless among the nomadic and idolatrous tribes of Pales- 
tine and Arabia, would often find the temptation very strong to 
seek refuge in a home like Abraham's. The personal liberty 
surrendered might be much less than the value received. The 
price paid might be more a gratuity than a compensation. In 
our own country it is undoubtedly true, that slaves have some- 
times been purchased in mercy to them ; and not in the least 
for the advantage of the purchaser. And emancipated slaves, 
who have not known how to use their freedom " as not abus- 
ing it," or who have been disappointed in their hopes, have 
sometimes returned to their master, and implored him to receive 
them again, and permit them to be as they were before he gave 
them their liberty. 

The comparative state of the bond and the free, in respect to 
means of improvement and enjoyment, nineteen centuries he- 



« 

fore Christ, must not, in the nineteenth century afiei' Christ, 
be summarily decided by our own conception of the value of 
personal liberty, or by the common acceptation of the terms 

^^ bo7id," and "/ree," in the languages and literature of the 
most enlightened Christian nations. 

That which costs money, is not always money, either in 
name or reality. A right of property may be claimed in the 
labor or service of a fellow-man ; and his service may have the 
form and designation of bondservice ; while yet he is not re- 
garded as " goods or chattels," or as " a beast of burden," but 
as truly a «?««, in whom is "the spirit that goeth upward," 
and not " the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the 
earth." 

What we know of Abraham's religious care of his household, 
forbids us to believe, that he could ever have looked upon any 
of his servants, as if mere things, or as like "the brutes that 
perish." They shared in all his religious privileges. They 
received the same seal of the covenant of promise. They were 
members of his family. He could confide in them, and trust 
arms in their hands, as if his own children. One was the 
steward of his house, and for a time was the heir apparent to 
the whole estate. Another was brought into a relation, which 
was accounted by himself and others, as next to the nearest. 

With such facts as these before us, how can we doubt, that 
Abraham could have responded most cordially to the words of 
the Man of Uz : " Did not he that made me in the womb make 
him? and did not one fashion us ? " As he considered the lia- 
bilities of bond-servants among idolaters, he might also have 
responded to those other words, from the same lips, when the 
grave was so fervently desired, — as the place, " where the 
wicked cease from troubling, and the weary be at rest ; the 
prisoners rest together ; they hear not the voice of the oppres- 
sor. The small and the great are there ; and the serva7it is 

free from his master^ (Job iii. 17-19.) 

But what now if God, who " seeth the end from the begin- 
ning," and has adapted his moral government to men, as they 
are in their imperfections, errors and sins, was pleased to enter 
into covenant with Abraham, recognizing his existing relations 

' to his household, without forbidding the continuance of any of 
them ; what if that covenant of promise, while extending for- 
ward and expanding through all coming time, was announced 
in terms and with provisions, which were exactly suited to 
affect, in the happiest manner, those existing relations ; suppose 
also, that those terms and provisions were in direct anticipation 
of that peculiar state of things, in which Abraham's descend- 
ants were led out of Egypt, to form and sustain a theocratic 
commonwealth, — is it a just or safe conclusion, that all those 



25 

relations of the patriarch may be considered right, in all cir- 
cumstances, and agreeable to the divine will, among all nations 
and in all ages ? And if Abraham could have " washed his 
hands in innocency," are modern slave-holders to feel that they 
can do likewise ? 

Who will contend, that the patriarchal system, in any of its 
distinctive features, was designed to be permanent ? And can 
the example of the patriarchs, in the matter of bond-service, be 
any more a direction of duty, or a sanction of allowance to us, 
as Christians or as citizens, than their example in the relations 
of marriage ? Would it be Christian, would it be right — if not 
prohibited by the laws of the land, — for a man now to take 
more wives than one, and as many as he should please ? And 
where is the record or the proof of any intimation to the patri- 
archs, that bond-service is any more consistent with the natural 
rights of man, and the highest good of the race, than polygamy 
or concubinage is, with the original constitution of family 
order? The most, as it appears to us, that can be made of 
bond-service in the families of the patriarchs, as a precedent or 
apology for modern slave-holding, is, that the relation of master 
and slave may not be always, and in all imaginable circum- 
stances, an actual wrong, or a real sin. 

In regard to slavery, as found among the Hebrews, after the 
giving of the law, it is of great importance to bear in mind 
what has been already suggested, respecting the universal pre- 
valence of the custom or institution. So far as can be ascer- 
tained, there had as yet been no ordinance in any kingdom or 
state, abolishing or restricting it. " Every man did that 
which was right in his own eyes." 

Moses found his brethren slave-holders, as well as themselves 
in hard bondage to the Egyptians. (Ex. xii. 44.) If, then, 
slavery was not entirely prohibited, any more than polygamy 
and divorce at will, by the statutes of the Hebrew common- 
wealth, can it be said, that it was so authorized as to warrant 
slave-holding in Christian America? We believe not. 

In each of the two tables of the moral law, there is a specific 
reference to men-servants and maid-servants. The terms are 
such as would have a full signification, if no bond-servants had 
been allowed in Israel. We must suppose, however, that ser- 
vants of this class were really contemplated, and for reasons 
which illustrate the righteous and beneficent character of the 
fundamental principles of the sacred code of God's covenant 
people. 

The Ten Commandments, although containing the essential 
rules of moral duty, which are applicable to all the race, to the 
end of time, were yet given in a form of words, specifically 



26 

adapted to the state of the IsraeHtes, in things peculiar. Wit- 
ness, for instance, the promise annexed to the fifth command- 
ment. And now whether the references to men-servants and 
maid-servants, are to be understood as intimating or pre-sup- 
posing the perpetual lawfulness of bond-service, either among 
the chosen seed of Abraham, or among the Gentiles, who in 
Christ are " Abraham's seed," is a question, which we would 
neither attempt to evade, nor hastily and summarily to decide. 

It is woithy of special attention, that, among the very first 
articles of the Mosaic code, after the record of the Ten Com- 
mandments, we find the statutes or ordinances which protected 
every Hebrew against the liabilities of bond-service. And it is 
also, perhaps, worthy of still more special attention, that for a 
Hebrew to " steal " one of his brethren, or to " make merchan- 
dise of him," or to " sell him," was a crime of the greatest 
enormity, and in all circumstances was to be punished with 
death. (Ex. xxi. 16; Deut, xxiv. 7.) 

Can any thing less be inferred from such statutes, than a de- 
cisive testimony of a holy and just God, to the inherent dignity 
of man, and the natural inviolability of his person? And by 
the ceremonial part of the Sabbath, the great anniversary fes- 
tivals, the Sabbatical or seventh year, with the thrilling scenes 
of the Jubilee throughout the land, in the fiftieth year, what 
less could have been intended, than a most instructive and im- 
pressive symbolization of the priceless liberty, which was the 
birth-right and the pledged inheritance of those, who were 
"servants unto God," and "not in bondage to any man ? " 
" For unto me," said the God of Abraham, "the children of 
Israel are servants ; they are my servants, whom I brought 
forth out of the land of Egypt : I am the Lord your God ! " 
(Lev. XXV. 55.) 

And next to those Ten Commandments, no statutes of the He- 
brew Lawgiver were written in such capitals of effulgent bright- 
ness, as those which enjoin an unceasing remembrance of the 
bondage in Egypt ; that all the people, young and old together, 
might intelligently and most gratefully celebrate the glorious 
redemption, which had been achieved for them, by the right 
arm of their fathers' God. Witness a description of these, in 
the work of Josephus, upon the " Antiquities of the Jews." — 
" Let every one commemorate before God the benefits which 
he bestowed upon them, at their deliverance out of the land of 
Egypt; and this twice every day, both when the day begins 
and when the hour of sleep comes on, — gratitude being in its 
own nature a just thing, and serving not only by way of return 
for past, but also by way of invitation of future favors. They 
are also to inscribe the principal blessings they have received 
from God upon the doors, and show the same remembrance of 



27 

them. on their arms; as also they are to bear on their forehead, 
and their arm, those wonders which declare the power of God, 
and his good-will towards them, that God's readiness to bless 
them may appear every where conspicuous about them." 
(B. iv. C. viii. 13.) 

The Israelites might bo made servants^ but not hond-men. 
(Lev. XXV. 39.) Six years was the longest period, in which a 
Hebrew could be held to serve any of his brethren of the seed 
of Abraham, unless by his own free and deliberate choice. 
(Ex. xxi. 2 ; Deut. xv. 12.) Whether he became a servant 
by tlie sale of himself; or by inability to pay his debts ; or by 
being sold in his minority by his poor parents ; or by incurring 
the penalty of theft, or some other crime not capital, — he was 
always to be treated with fraternal kindness, as one of the priv- 
ileged partakers of the Lord's covenant with their great progen- 
itor. And when his term of service "as a hired servant and as 
a sojourner " had expired, he was to be discharged with valua- 
ble presents. '• Thou shalt not let him go away empty. Thou 
shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy 
floor, and out of thy wine-press ; of that wherewith the Lord 
thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. And thou 
shalt remember that thou wast a bond-man in Egypt, and the 
Lord thy God redeemed thee; therefore I command thee this 
thingv to-day." (Lev. xxv. 40; Deut xv. 12-15.) 

If a Hebrew sold himself, in his penury and distress, to a 
rich "sojourner or stranger " in the land, — the law of his pro- 
tection was explicit : "As a yearly hired servant shall he be 
with him ; and the other shall not rule with rigor over him in 
thy sight." (Lev. xxv. 53.) He was always redeemable by 
his near kindred or by himself; and this fact iinplies that he 
might hold property by gift or inheritance, and that only his 
service accrued to his master. If not redeemed before the 
year of Jubilee, he then received his freedom, with all others 
of Hebrew origin, who had not voluntarily deprived themselves 
of their appropriate part in the general joy of emancipation. 

The disobedience of the statutes, in respect to the rights of 
Hebrew servants, to their liberty, and to honorable remunera- 
tion, at the end of six years, became, in the days of Isaiah, a 
most aggravated crime of the people in Judah. (Is. Iviii.) And 
in the days of Jeremiah, the same disobedience was one of the 
procuring causes of the captivity in Babylon. (Jer. xxxiv. 12- 
17.) But no inference against the design and excellence of a 
law, or system of polity, is to be drawn from the defiance of 
transgressors and the delinquency of magistrates. 

The practical sentiment of the more enlightened and philan- 
thropic among the people of God, at a very early period of their 
residence in Palestine, may have had a true expression, in a 



28 

later age, in the admirable injunctions of the son of Sirach : 
" Let thy soul love a good servant, and defraud him not of his 
liberty." " Unto the servant that is wise shall they that are 
free do service ; and he that hath knowledge will not grudge, 
when he is reformed." (Ecclus. vii. 21 ; x. 25.) 

In the reign of Ahaz, an army of the kingdom of the Ten 
Tribes had brought back from an invasion of Judah, a great 
multitude of captives, for the purpose of making them bond- 
servants. As the conquerors approached Samaria, with the 
trophies of their success, they met with an indignant and ef- 
fectual repulse from " a profihet of the Lord," and from " cer- 
tain of the heads of the children of Ephraim." "Ye shall not 
bring in the captives hither ; for whereas we have offended 
against the Lord already, ye intend to add more to our sins and 
to our trespass : for our trespass is great and there is fierce wrath 
against Israel. So the armed men left the captives and the 
spoil before the princes and all the congregation. And the 
men which were expressed by name rose up and took the cap- 
tives, and with the spoil clothed all that were naked among 
them, and arrayed them, and shod them, and gave them to eat 
and to drink, and anointed them, and carried all the feeble of 
them upon asses, and brought them to Jericho, the city of palm 
trees, to their brethren." (2 Chron. xxviii.) 

The attempt to enslave the captives of Judah might be sup- 
posed to indicate that the Hebrews in their wars with heathen 
nations were accustomed to make slaves of their prisoners, as 
was the ancient practice, according to the generally received 
rights of conquest. To some extent this may have been done. 
But the evidence is wanting, — except, we believe, in respect to 
the wars, which were unavoidable in the conquest of Canaan. 
A part only of the Midianites, who had signally fallen under 
the Divine displeasure, were permitted to live ; and undoubtedly 
were intended for maid-servants. (Num. xxxi. 15-18. Comp. 
vs. 40.) The infidel sarcasm upon the proceeding is as ground- 
less as it is abominable. 

In marching to the land of promise, the Hebrews were 
obliged to pass through territories and near cities, which were 
not given them for possession or for spoil ; although the inhab- 
itants might be compelled to be their tributaries. If these 
would submit without armed resistance, they were to be spared, 
and both their persons and projierty were to receive no violence. 
But if after rejecting the " proclamation of peace," they were 
subdued, all the males were devoted to destruction, but "the 
women and the little ones " were to be spared, and were to be 
considered as a part of the spoils. (Deut. xx. 10-14.) But 
these directions seem very evidently to have had immediate 
respect to the times, in which they were given ; and to have 



29 

been occasioned by those exigencies, which would naturally 
cease, after the people of Israel h^d become settled in the land, 
which God gave to their fathers. " Thus shalt thou do," it is 
said, " unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, 
which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities 
of these people, which tlie Lord thy God doth give thee for 
an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth : 
But thou shalt utterly destroy them, namely, the Hittitesand 
the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites 
and the Jebusites, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee : 
That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, 
which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against 
the Lord your God." (Ueut. xx. 15-18.) 

The injunctions to the Hebrews concerning the manner of 
conducting a siege of any city of their enemies, and the treat- 
ment of female captives, were very far from that spirit of ra- 
pine and brutality, which have been common in w^ars, both an- 
cient and modern. (Deut. xx. 19, 20; xxi. 10-14.) And it 
may be noticed as a fact, which speaks whole volumes for the 
character of the Hebrews, as contrasted with other people of 
antiquity, that in the most degenerate periods, the worst of the 
abandoned kings of Israel had the reputation of being ^^nierci- 
ful,^' in war. (1 Kings xx. 31.) 

All the institutions of Moses were framed for a people who 
were never to have any part in war, but in self-defence, or as 
the appointed instruments of God's wrath upon the heathen. 
They were to be as in the best days of Solomon, who " had 
peace on all sides round about him : and Judah and Israel dwelt 
safely, every man under his vine and under his fig-tree, from 
Dan even to Beersheba." 

The whole Mosaic system was opposed to war ; and all that 
could possibly be asked of the blessings and security of peace, 
was promised to the people, if they would be faithful to their 
covenant with God. 

Hence as war was no part of the policy of the Hebrew Com- 
monwealth we may see a reason why the Hebrews were not 
forbidden to make captives, and reduce them to bondage. It 
was assumed that there would be no wars, except in circum- 
stances analogous to those, for which directions had been given. 
And so far as appears, when, in subsequent periods, wars were 
undertaken, or were forced upon the people, it was not their 
custom to enslave the captives. Certain it is there is no statute 
on record, authorizing them to make war, after the manner of 
other nations ; and of course none, which allowed them to 
take captives and make slaves, at their discretion. 

But as all nations had bond-servants, Moses would naturally 
have felt, that it was necessary to make some provision, by 
4 



30 

which the desire of a part of the people could be gratified, and 
yet restrained and regulated. This he did, doubtless, under 
the divine sanction. And the way in which the Hebrews 
might legally become possessed of bond-men and bond-maids, 
and as we understand the statute, tlie only loay^ which was de- 
signed and anticipated, was by purchase of the heathen, that 
were roiuid about them. " Both thy bond-men, and bond-maids, 
which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round 
about you ; of them shall ye buy bond-men and bond-maids. 
Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn 
among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that 
are with you, which they beget in your land, and they shall 
be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance 
for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession: they 
shall be your bond-men forever." (Lev. xxv. 44-46.) 

For the Canaanites, slavery was regarded as too great a priv- 
ilege, or rather would have subjected the seed of Abraham to 
too great a hazard. Such was their bad faith, says an eminent 
archasologist, "the greatness of their numbers, and their deep 
rooted idolatry, that, had they been introduced under any cir- 
cumstances whatever into the Israelitish community, they 
would certainly have endangered their existence as a people of 
God. The Gibeonites, the Kaphirites, the Beerothites and the 
inhabitants of Kirjath-jearim, having surreptitiously obtained 
a treaty with the Israelites, were made exceptions also, and 
were employed in the service of the Tabernacle." (Josh. ix. 
1-27.) The "bond-service" which Solomon "levied" upon 
those that remained of the " Amorites" and their kindred tribes, 
was for a temporary purpose; and the whole procedure implies, 
that, as a people, they had been/ree, and. by the subjugation of 
their fathers had not been reduced to slavery. 

Those servants who were bought of the heathen, could be 
held in bondage, at pleasure, as an inheritance for the masters 
and their children. We must so interpret the statutes, what- 
ever may have been the practical operation. (Lev. xxv. 46.) 
We cannot translate the Hebrew "/o/-ei;er," as synonymous 
with " ^/ie year of jubilee." It is indeed written : "And ye 
shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout 
all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubi- 
lee unto you, and ye shall return every man unto his possession 
and every man unto his family." (Lev. xxv. 10.) But this 
statute, as we must think, did not include bond-men and bond- 
maids from the heathen, as inhabitants of the land. Such 
must have been excepted, according to the common ideas 
of the people ; and by the express terms of the statute which 
follows in the same chapter. ^^Inhabitants " were the same as 
citizens. 



31 

But how changed must have been the condition of those 
bond-servants ! They might, it is true, be treated with a 
"rigor," which was forbidden, in respect to Hebrews. A 
marked distinction was doubtless intended to be made, to mag- 
nify the superiority of the chosen race. But those heatlien 
servants were to be circumcised, were to be instructed in the 
doctrines and precepts of the true God, and were to partake of 
the great festivals, and other exalted privileges of the Hebrew 
Commonwealth. 

When the national covenant was so solemnly made, under 
the direction of Moses, just before he disaj^peared from the sight 
of the people, we Hod " the stranger " in their camp, from "the 
hewer of wood " to " the drawer of water," standing before 
God, with the "captains" of the tribes, their "elders," their 
"officers" and all " the men of Israel," to "enter into cove- 
nant " with God, that he " might establish them for a people to 
himself." (Deut. xxix, 10-13.) Thus being regarded so much, 
as if Hebrews, the laws applicable to Hebrew servants would 
essentially operate in their favor. 

A very great difference in their condition, as compared with 
slaves in other countries, must have been produced by the Sab- 
bath alone. How much also by the exemption from labor on 
the days of public festivals and other solemnities, during every 
seventh year, when no seed was sown, and " the land enjoyed 
her Sabbaths!" Incomparably superior, in all respects, must 
have been the state of the Hebrew bond-servants, to that of 
those in other lands, where was no Sabbath for the slave, and 
no law of mercy or justice, sanctioned by the Judge of all. 

The legitimate tendency of their social position, therefore, 
was not to rivet upon them and their children the chains of 
perpetual servitude ; but to prepare them to be fully incorpora- 
ted witli the body-politic, as "no more strangers and foreigners, 
but fellow-citizens." The knowledge of the superior advan- 
tages enjoyed by them, would be communicated to surround- 
ing and even to more distant nations. And may it not be, that 
the spiritual benefits which they were to receive, was a reason, 
in the counsels of God, for permitting the people of Israel to 
bring them into their families in the relation of bond-ser- 
vants ? 

Whenever the heathen were willing to renounce their idols 
and other abominations, the Israelites appear to have welcomed 
them to a full participation in their national and spiritiml privi- 
leges. We are not aware, that in this point there was any re- 
spect of persons, as being free or in bonds. What can be more 
obvious, then, in this view of the privileges and immunities of 
bond-servants, than that many of them might very soon come 
to occupy a similar ground, to that of servants of Hebrew 



origin, in their real claims to fraternal sympathy and kindness ; 
and consequently, that a large proportion, at different times, 
and especially in the year of jubilee, would obtain entire and 
joyous manumission and citizenship? Hence it may have 
been a fact, as has been asserted upon the authority of learned 
men of the Hebrew race, that, in the year of jubilee, or of 
LiBERTV, as, according to Josephus, the term denotes, all slaves 
were set free, whatever their parentage. At least, this may 
have been true, in some instances. 

We are not aware that the Israelites ever had any such num- 
bers of bond-servants, as were to be found in some other an- 
cient countries. It was designed that there should be a general 
equality and fraternity, such as could not well exist, where a 
few were opulent and the many were poor, or in comparative 
indigence. The face of the country and the climate would not 
admit of plantations, like those in our Southern States, or in 
the West Indies. The distribution of lands in small sections, 
that, if possible, every maji might be a land-holder ; the laws 
of inheritance, and redemption of property ; the employment of 
the mass of the people, as tillers of the soil, or as shepherds ; 
the very small number of great cities; the manifold obstacles 
to the acquisition of large estates; and more than all, the moral 
purpose of their institutions, — were incompatible with slave- 
holding, as an integral or vital part of the Mosaic polity. So 
far as it existed, slavery was an appendage, as by special legis- 
lation, or a constitutional compromise. Or, perhaps, there is 
reason enough to compare it to the disease of a limb, for which, 
as a remedy, amputation would be more to be dreaded, than 
toleration. Just so it was with polygamy, and the license of 
divorce. 

We are expressly told by the " Lord of all," that Moses 
" suffered " the people " to put away their wives," not because 
" it was so from the beginning," but because of their " hard- 
ness of heart." (Mat. xix. 8.) They were not prepared for 
restrictions, which, in the light of the gospel, are seen to be of 
vital consequence to domestic purity and peace. Was not the 
same true of them, in respect to bond-service ? And might not 
Moses have sometimes said, as did the apostle, " / speak this 
by permission, and 7iot of commandment ! ^^ 

But in all the earth there was no such liberty and no such 
happiness of home, as among the chosen people. By the Mo- 
saic institutions they were exalted to heaven, as compared with 
all the world beside. 

Whenever a slave made his escape from the surrounding 
heathen nations, and sought a residence among the tribes of 
Israel, he was not to be delivered up to his master. " He shall 
dwell with thee, even among you in that place which he shall 



choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best : thou shall 
not oppress him." (Deut. xxiii. 15, 16.) "The Lord your 
God is a God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, 
and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward ; 
he doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, 
and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love 
ye therefore the stranger ; for ye were strangers in the land of 
Egypt." (Deut. x. 17-19.) 

Of the Gentile race, it is unquestionable, that individuals 
rose to eminence in Israel, by their endowments and exertions, 
in the arts of war and peace. Even bond-servants were not 
denied honorable connections by marriage. An instance is 
given in 1 Chron. ii. 34, 35. "Now Sheshan had no sons, but 
daughters ; and Sheshan had a servant, an Egyptian, whose 
name was Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his 
servant, to wife." 

Differences of color, which, in some cases, as it is believed, 
were not small, are not known to have presented any insuper- 
able, if any opposing barrier, to elevation and social improve- 
ment. We certainly may so believe, if a " spouse " of Solomon 
when " in all his glory," could say of herself, what is repre- 
sented in " The Song of Songs." (i. 5.) 

Thus, to say no more, the mode of bond-service, in its con- 
temj)lated and its actual character, as authorized and regulated 
by law, in the land of promise, must have exhibited a stupen- 
dous contrast of fai'th and virtue, brotherly kindness and 
charity, to the oppressive and merciless exactions and inflic- 
tions, so common and so natural, among the idolatrous nations 
of the earth. 

We would now say distinctly, that, as we understand the 
right of the Israelites to hold bond-servants, it was wholly de- 
rived from divine permission. It was granted, or rather not 
denied to them, when emerging from a semi-barbarous state ; 
and when it would have been next to impossible to enforce an 
absolute prohibition of all servitude. The indulgence was 
given, under the same sovereign authority, which commanded 
as well as permitted them to take violent possession of the land 
of Canaan. It may have been in part, at least so far as the 
heathen were concerned, for an essentially similar reason. 
Joshua and his armies could never have been justified in driving 
out the Canaanites by sword and fire, unless the Ruler of 
nations had expressly directed them to do it, as the instruments 
of his righteous visitation upon those incorrigible sinners; and 
for ulterior purposes, in his distinguishing mercy towards Abra- 
ham and his seed, and the countless millions of the Gentiles, 
who, in after ages were to be blest immeasurably in the great 
Redeemer of the world. Let no man impeach " the goodness" 
4 * 



34 

or " the severity " of Him who is " wonderful in counsel and 
excellent in working ! " 

It must be admitted by any candid objector, that a civil, 
social or moral right, which does not exist naturally, may be 
created, or sanctioned, by a positive institution, or an extra- 
judicial ordinance of the Most High. Where, however, such 
an institution or ordinance does not apply in its provisions, or 
when it has fulfilled its purposes, — then what has been pre- 
scribed, granted, or countenanced, may be or may become an 
abomination and abhorrence. Would it now be acceptable to 
God to erect altars in Massachusetts, and offer whole burnt 
offerings thereon ? And is there reason to think, that it would 
be any more agreeable to the divine will, if our legislature 
should add to the " Revised Statutes " the identical laws of 
Moses, respecting slavery ? 

It may also be suggested, that an act, or custom, or positive 
institution, when right, because commanded or permitted by 
divine authority, must be supposed to have tendencies and fa- 
vorable influences upon the interests of virtue and happiness, 
which would have no existence, without the divine favor ac- 
companying such command or permission. Bui in all cases, 
whatever depends upon mere permission, is to be judged in re- 
spect to its intrinsic character, or by the original and immutable 
ordinances of justice and mercy. Thus it is, that we decide 
against polygamy, and decide it to be wrong. 

The Mosaic code was made, not for angels unfallen, but for 
men who had exceedingly " corrupted " their " way upon the 
earth." — Whatever may now be thought, many of those cere- 
monial provisions, which made " the law " so much " a yoke 
of bondage," in contrast with the " liberty " of the gospel, and 
which would be to us intolerable, were of the highest impor- 
tance in the age of the Exodus, in teaching the twelve tribes 
the duty and the very idea of holmess. The restrictions to 
which they were subjected, were in many respects, so contrary 
to all their previous conceptions and habits, that, in considering 
the past, present and the future, their incomparable lawgiver 
demonstrated his " divine legation," in so admirably adapting 
the details of his mixed spiritual and ceremonial, civil and ju- 
dicial system, to the community as it then was, and as it 
might afterwards become. Indulgences or allowances, with 
restraints, would be unavoidable. In our own day, if indul- 
gences are tacitly or expressly granted, it is not to be understood, 
that the legislators who frame the statutes or regulations, in 
reference to any custom or practice, approve of that custom or 
practice. Quite the contrary is often the fact. And in many 
cases, the very necessity of a statute is a condemnation of the 
subject-matter which it is designed to regulate. 



It appears to us, therefore, that modem slave-holdhig systems 
cannot be vindicated by an appeal to the existence of slavery 
among the Hebrews. Slave-holders should now adduce the evi- 
dence of similar pcr7nission, unequivocal and indisputable. 
The laws of Moses are not the laws of the world, or of any 
part of the world. The slave-holder must look elsewhere for 
his authority to buy and to hold bond-servants. Let him show, 
if he can, a title-deed, ratified and sealed by the hand of Him, 
who no longer confers exclusive privileges upon Jew or Gen- 
tile. God, in his infinite favor, has "provided some better 
thing for us." 

We have been thus particular in our examination of the wit- 
ness of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, because we regard 
this part of our work as of the higliest importance. We have 
much more, that we should be glad to say, particularly in refe- 
rence to the principles, the interior and pervading spirit of 
benignity and philanthropy, which the letter and external form 
of the laws and institutions of the Hebrew Commonwealth do 
not appear to have always suggested to those who have ex- 
amined them. It may be our mistake or misapprehension, but 
it seems to us very manifest, that the simple letter of the Mosaic 
code, rather than its spirit and life, has been far too often and 
exclusively considered. 

Suppose now, that the Hebrew religion, instead of being 
confined to a peculiar people, had been universal in its direct 
and immediate application ; or, which would have been the 
same in effect, — suppose that all nations had become holy unto 
the Lord, — where would have been found the Gentiles to steal 
men, or to " make merchandise " of brethren? In the common 
acceptation of the term, there would not have been a single 
slave 2ipon the face of the earth ! 

Hence it is as certain, as any moral demonstration can be, 
that except as punishment for crime, — the real genius, the true 
spirit of the Mosaic institutions, is utterly repugnant and de- 
structive to all slave-holding and slavery ! It is the spirit of 
UNIVERSAL FREEDOM, aud therefore the genius of universal 

EMANCIPATION. 

To the advocates of slave-holding who refer us to the Mosaic 
institutions or statutes, we may be allowed to say, that, " as 
ministers of the New Testament," so would we be of the Old; 
"not of the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter killeth, but 
the spirit giveth life!" "Therefore all things whatsoever ye 
would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them ; for 
this is the law and the prophets ! " 



36 



It was no fault of the law of Moses, that its spirituality and 
benignity were not more generally perceived and appreciated. 
The gospel of Christ is now rejected by many, and is far from 
having its perfect work, in those who acknowledge its immeas- 
urable excellency. But neither the former nor the latter dis- 
pensation of the grace of God, is responeible for human per- 
verseness and intractableness. 

The civil and ceremonial provisions of the Mosaic system 
were accommodated to the condition of the chosen people, with 
ultimate designs, which required ages for their full development. 
And although most wise and excellent, in the circumstances of 
that people, and of the world, yet "the law made nothing per- 
fect," as did " the bringing in of a better hope." " Having a 
shadow of good things to come and not the very image of the 
things," the whole fabric of Moses was for a season only. It 
was not ordained of God to be perpetual. And can it be a 
question, whether, in " the grace and truth " which " came by 
Jesus Christ," there can be any less of the spirit of universal 
philanthropy and freedom, than in the positive and temporary 
institutions, or in the moral and fundamental principles of " the 
law," which " came by Moses ? " As it regards the latter, 
there can be no room for a doubt. The gospel and the law, or 
the New Testament and the Old. are one and inseparable in 
those principles of righteousness and love, which, like the 
source of all being and blessing, are from everlasting to ever- 
lasting. And " if that which is done away was glorious, much 
more that which remaineth is glorious." 

Happy would it have been with the Hebrews, if they had 
cordially obeyed the statutes of their sacred code, and had more 
diligently considered, so as to discern the spirit of their rit-ual. 
The Mosaic system, in a fair operation, would have put an 
entire end to all slave-holding among them. 

There is no evidence, we believe, that such a place as a 
slave-market was ever known at Jerusalem, or in any of the 
cities of the land while the people preserved their independence. 
There is no mention of "the persons of men," among, the arti- 
cles of traffic, which the ships of Solomon brought from Ophir; 
nor in any other notice of Hebrew commerce. Yet it is not at 
all improbable, that individuals were sometimes concerned in 
the slave-trade of other nations. In some instances the num- 
ber may have been great, when an opportunity was afforded of 
making large gains, by buying the captives which were offered 
for sale, by tens of thousands, as after the conquest of a populous 
city, like Sidon, by Artaxerxes Ochus, or Tyre, by Alexander 
the Great. 



37 

The neighboring powers of Tyre and Sidon, at one period, 
had sold many of the Hebrews to the Greeks, From what is 
said of them in the Book of Joel, it is evident, that this traflic 
in men had been pursued in the most reckless and revolting 
manner. In the terrible retribution which was denounced, the 
avenging God of " the children of Judah " declared : " I will 
raise them out of the place whither ye have sold them, and will 
return recompense upon your own head. And I will sell your 
sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, 
and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off: for 
the Lord hath spoken it." (Ch. iii.) 

The fulfillment of this prophecy is among the well authenti- 
cated memorials of the age of Alexander. Many of those who 
had been sold into Greece were set at liberty ; while the Ty- 
rians and Sidonians who had sold them, were doomed to slavery 
by the conquerors, and were purchased by some of the Jews, 
who sold them to the Sabeans and Arabians. 

A part .of those purchased, it is very likely, were sold to 
Jews, or were retained by the purchasers in their own families. 
In the three centuries following the age of Alexander, there 
was no diminution of the slave-holding spirit among the Gen- 
tiles, either of Asia, Europe or Africa. And we are not able to 
affirm, that, at any time previous to the Christian era, the Jews 
had no slaves among them. But the manner in which the 
slave-merchants are alluded to, who came with the armies of 
Syria in the wars of the Maccabees, very plainly shows how 
such a commerce, as that in men, was regarded by those noble 
champions of Hebrew liberty. (1 Mac. iii. 41, &c. ; 2 Mac. 
viii. 10, 11, 34-36.) And such, in general, was the public 
sentiment, or the various influence of divers causes, that, when 
the Messiah appeared, there is much reason for the opinion, that 
both polygamy and slavery had so far been abolished, as not to 
require any specific notice in his admonitory and reformative 
instructions. 

In the judgment of biblical scholars, who are among the 
best qualified to determine the point, it is very questionable, \J, 
" in the days of his flesh," the eye of the Great Reformer ever 
rested upon a single slave. And one case only, that of the 
young servant of a Roman centurion, who, at Capernaum, ex- 
hibited "so great faith," can be cited as an exan]ple„that the 
relation of master and slave was ever brought directly before 
him, in any of his ministrations. But it is far from being cer- 
tain, that the servant in question was a bondservant. The 
terms used in each of the narratives of the miracle of healing, 
which, in the circimistances, w^as so memorable, might as we 
think, have been employed as they are, even by a Roman, if 
that servant had been as free as was the centurion himself. 



38 

The compassionate interposition of tiie Saviour was besought 
as earnestly, as if he were no less dear to his master than an 
own son. (Mat. viii. 8 ; Luke vii. 2-10.) 

In all the recorded discourses and conversations of our Lord, 
there are but a very few instances, in which any allusion what- 
ever was made to the subject of servitude. And in no one of 
these«is the idea of slavery, as we use the term, necessarily or 
strongly implied. (Mat. vi. 24 ; Comp. Luke xvi. 13; Mat. xiii. 
27, 28 ; John viii. 33 ; xiii. 15 ; xv. 20.) However the fact 
may be explained, there is not, in either of the Gospels, any 
affirmation of right or condemnation of wrong, in respect to 
master or slave, — any more than there is of direct rebuke of 
idolaters and their abominable iniquities. 

The Great Teacher said nothing of the gladiatorial exhibi- 
tions, so common and so bloody in the Roman empire, or of 
other customs and practices, which were, of course, utterly in- 
consistent with the well-being of society, and repugnant to 
every principle of the gospel. Even upon great questions of 
civil polity, which have since become so vastly hiteresting, 
throughout the civilized world, he delivered no discourse and 
gave no counsel, which could have any immediate tendency 
to disturb the submission of the Jews to the throne of Cassar. 

The accomplishment of the grand design of the Redeemer's 
coming into our world, did not admit of his directing the atten- 
tion of his hearers or of his disciples, to those subjects, which 
would at once have given his mission the aspect of a treason- 
able c6nspiracy against the power of Rome, or, at least, of a 
lawless and fanatical movement, for the destruction of existing 
social relations. Enough for the hour, at that momentous crisis 
in the history of our redemption, that the Lord of life should 
publish a system of grace and truth, involving principles, which, 
in their intended and inevitable result, so far as applied, would 
be subversive of every institution or custom, which is at vari- 
ance with the highest virtue and glory of man. Such a system 
the gospel claims to be, in all its elements and in all its charac- 
tgristics. And if it be " diametrically opposed to the principle 
of slavery," as is maintained by an eminent expounder of 
Christian ethics, and by many others, then is it undeniable, 
as he also maintains, that "it must be opposed to the practice of 
slavery ;, and therefore, were the principles of the gospel fully 
adopted, slavery could not exist."* 

" The very reason,'^ it has elsewhere been said by the same 
author, — " why this mode of teaching was adopted, was to ac- 
complisli the universal abolition of slavery. A precept could 
not have done this ; for, in the changing condition of human 

"* WaylancVs Elements of Moral Science. 



39 

society, the means would have easily been devised for ehiding 
it. But by teaching truths, the very truths in which Chris- 
tianity consisted, utterly and absolutely opposed to slavery, 
truths founded in the essential moral relations of creatures to 
their Creator, it was rendered certain that wherever Christianity 
was understood and obeyed, this institution must cease to 
exist."* 

And we may add to these statements, without anticipating 
what we have to say in the sequel, — that the method of Christ 
and the apostles in regard to slavery, is precisely that which 
the ablest apologistsf for the right or lawfulness of slave-hold- 
ing have described, and declared to be, the only consistent 
method for Christians at the present day. And they admit the 
fact, as indisputable, that the gospel, by its legitimate operation, 
did abolish the slavery of the Roman empire. 

It is indeed in precepts or commandments, that we have the 
literal rule of duty. But it is in the principles, upon which 
those precepts are founded, and in the doctrines and examples 
which reveal or iUustrate the nature of our obligations, and the 
proper motives of cordial obedience, that we have the highest, 
the most ennobling, and the most effectual instructions of Chris- 
tian virtue. Without these, in a distinct perception and recog- 
nition, the precepts of our holy religion would never find a re- 
sponse of love in the heart. Without these, also, it would be 
impossible to feel the admiring and adoring sentiment of the 
Psalmist, when he exclaimed : " I have seen an end of all per- 
fection ; but THY COMMANDMENT IS EXCEEDING BKOAD ! " 

Our duty, then, to God and to one another, we do not seek 
to learn, preeminently, in the precepts, but in the great and pri- 
mary principles and doctrines of " the law of the spirit of life 
in Christ Jesus." And in proportion as these are apprehended 
and exert their legitimate influence, the gospel will have its 
"free course," and be glorified, as a " perfect law of liberty." 

Every good citizen obeys the laws of his country, not be- 
cause of their "terror," but because of his sentiments and con- 
victions of uprightness and order. And the sincere Christian, 
who in his outward life reflects most of the "image of God, in 
righteousness and true holiness," is influenced, and transformed 
into that image, immeasurably more by his filial acquaintance 
with God in Christ, than by any of the most fearful denuncia- 
tions of "eternal judgment." 

Hence, as we understand our relations to the Judge of all the 
earth, we should be guilty of a most flagrant error, if we were 
not to recognize the cardinal principles and doctrines of Chris- 
tianity, as the clearest and surest exponents of his sovereign 

* Wayland's Letters to Fuller. f Fuller's Letters to Wayland. 



40 

will, in the more specific directions of precept or commandment. 
Thus if we would know what interpretation we are to give to 
the GoLDicN Rule, it will not suffice to consider the literal form 
of the words only, in which it comes to us. If we would 
comprehend its beneficence and its justice, in its thousand dif- 
ferent applications, we must remember those many other "gra- 
cious words," which are like the parable of the " Good Samari- 
tan " in answering the question — "Who is my neighbor?" 
And if, upon the subject now before us, we would know and 
judge rightly the witness of the " Revelation of Jesus Christ" 
in the New Testament, we must open our whole heart to the 
radiance of the Tkuth, which makes us "free indeed." Ac- 
cording to the gospel, all mankind are placed upon the same 
level before God. Jew and Gentile, barbarian and Scythian, 
bond and free, are all one in Christ. All were redeemed by the 
same blood. All have the same title to become " heirs of sal- 
vation." All should be, in deed and in truth, brethren beloved. 
How, then, could any man, with "the love of Christ constrain- 
ing" him, ever make a slave of his fellow-man ? And in what 
land does slavery exist, without assuming, that there is a distinc- 
tion and a difference between the slave and his master, which is 
radically and irreconcilably opposed to the very first principles, 
both of evangelical and civil liberty, equality and fraternity ? 
How can any man believe, that he himself as a slave-holder and 
a Christian, would be willing to be deprived of his liberty ; to 
be retained in servitude; to be bought and sold at pleasure, — for 
the same reasons and upon the same principles that he holds his 
own slaves in bondage? 

"Domestic slavery." says Dr. Wayland, "proceeds upon the 
principle, that the master has a right to control the actions, 
physical and intellectual, of the slave, for his own, that is, the 
master's, individual benefit ; and of course, that the happiness of 
the master, when it comes in competition with the happiness of 
the slave, extinguishes in the latter the right to pursue it. It 
supposes, at best, that the relation between master and slave is 
not that which exists between man and man, but is a modifica- 
tion of that which exists between man and the brutes. Now 
this manifestly supposes, that two classes of beings are created 
with dissimilar rights ; that the master possesses rights which 
have never been conceded by the slave ; and, that the slave has 
no rights at all over the means of happiness which God has 
given him, whenever these means of happiness can be rendered 
available to the service of the master. It supposes that the 
Creator intended one human being to govern the jihysical, intel- 
lectual and moral actions, of as many other human beings, as 
by purchase he can bring within his physical power; and that 
one human being may thus acquire a right to sacrifice the hap- 



41 

piness of any number of other human beings for the purpose of 
promoting his own." 

This general statement of " the principle of slavery," we are 
aware, would not be received by those, who contend that sla- 
very like despotism is to be regarded as in itself among the 
things which are indifferent, and which are right or wrong only 
according to circumstances. But it is much easier to deny the 
statement, than to disprove it. — And let any man, if he can, re- 
fer us to any better " principle of slavery." 

It is not for the slave-holder to assume, that vested or legal 
rights are superior to those which belong to the slave, as a 
'man, and which have been forfeited by no crime. It is not 
for the slave-holder to say, that other men would do as he 
does, in like circumstances. Neither is it to the purpose to al- 
lege, that, if the slave could change his place for that of his 
master, he would be a slave-holder. The question is. What is 
right before God 7 The criterion of duty to our fellow-man, 
is not what we do, or what others would do ; but what we and 
they ought to do. 

If the slave-holder shall affirm, that his slave is inferior to 
himself, and therefore he has a right to hold him in servitude, — 
the argument would prove infinitely too much ; whatever be 
the kind of inferiority, which might be intended or conceded. 
Is it not a dictate of the Golden Rule, that, if we have any ad- 
vantage over our fellow-men, in intellect, in knowledge, in sta- 
tion, in wealth, it is our duty "to do good and to communicate" 
the more, — enlightening, improving, elevating those who are of 
the same great family, instead of subjugating them, oppressing 
them, and degrading if not destroying them ? — And if existing 
laws in the slave-holding States are incompatible with the in- 
tellectual advancement, and the general progress of the slaves, 
according to their ability, in those varied attainments, which 
exalt man in the scale of being, and enable him the more emi- 
nently to glorify God, — can those laws be consistent with the 
gospel ? Can the system, which imperatively requires them 
for its very existence, be otherwise than antagonistical to the 
" love which is of God," and with which " we ought to love 
one another ? " So far as the gospel can be said to have legis- 
lated for man, is it not for all men ? — Were its precepts or in- 
junctions/or the slave-holder, and against the slave ; so that it 
is the right of the former to act for the latter, as if the latter 
were first of all amenable to the will of the former ? 

The advocates of slavery have much to say of the right of 
the master to oblige the slave to submit to his commands. Why 
is it that so little has been said of the obligation of the slave, 
whether natural or moral, to be his master's property and to be 
used or sold like a brute or chattel ? What right can the mas- 
5 



42 

ter have to his slave, which is not immeasurably below the 
highest and most sacred of all natural rights, — the right of man 
to himself, in the fear of God ? 

As we understand the claims of right to oblige the slave to 
submit to his master, in all things; and as the laM'-s which up- 
hold these claims must certainly mean, if they mean any thing j 
it would be as impossible for many of the slaves to serve God, 
according to his Word, and serve their masters, as their masters 
require of them, as it would be for a man to be an exemplary 
Christian, while he daily worshipped a graven image of Bramha 
or Moloch. 

When the commandment is, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself," it is im- 
plied, that man's love of himself must be, not only in accord- 
ance with supreme love to God, but also promotive of this love 
in himself and others. He is not to make his own selfish and 
unholy passions and predilections the criterion or measure of 
his duty of love to his neighbor. The "love" which is "the 
fulfilling of the law," " worketh no ill to his neighbor," any 
more than to himself. And he must love himself and be in- 
clined to do for Inmself, and for all others, according to his rela- 
tions and obligations, as a subject of the moral and paternal 
government of God. He must, therefore, regard all men as 
Aembers of the same family ; as subjects of the same moral 
government ; as having the same essential wants, intellectual 
and spiritual as well as physical and social ; as recognized alike 
in the rich provisions of divine bounty and grace : and thus 
holding such a relation, each one to every other, that all should 
seek to do good and not evil to every one, whatever his 
country, his color, or his condition. 

Can it be doubted, that every man is bound to have that kind 
of regard for himself, and that only, which will best enable 
him to answer the great end for which God made him a "living 
soul"? No man's personal happiness is any more important to 
himself, than is that of any other man to himself Where, then, 
in the law of love to God and man, as expounded by the Great 
Teacher of the world, — where in any of his words of doctrine, 
and of instruction in righteousness, — is there to be discerned 
the "shadow of a shade" of sanction for the claim of right, to 
hold a fellow-man, though a brother in Christ, in bondage; and, 
for neither his debt nor his crime, to compel him to be a slave, 
by what ever means affecting his physical, social, intellectual 
and moral nature, his entire submission to his master's will is to 
be secured ? Let the law of love be fulfilled, in all its length 
and breadth, and the doom of slavery would be sealed in a day. 

" The Christian religion," it has been said by one of its most 
respected living witnesses, " teaches that ' God hath made of 



one blood all the nations of men for to dwell on all the face of 
Che earth,' (Acts xvii. 26.) and that as children of the common 
Father they are regarded as equal. All the right which one hu- 
man being has ever been supposed to have over another, in virtue 
of any superiority in rank, complexion, or blood, is evidently 
contrary to this doctrine of the Bible, in regard to the origin 
and equality of the human race. * * A man may be wiser 
or less wise than I am ; he may have more or less property ; 
he may have a more richly endowed, or an inferior mental ca- 
pacity ; but this does not affect our common nature. He is in 
every respect, notwithstanding our difference in these things, 
as completely a human being as myself; and he stands in pre- 
cisely the same relations towards the Creator as Father of all. 
* * * It is his right and privilege to seek to know the will 
of God, and to act always with reference to the future state on 
which he is soon to enter. * * * It was with reference to 
this common nature^ that redemption was provided. * * * 
Every human being has a right to feel, that, when the Son of 
God became incarnate, he took his nature upon him, and to re- 
gard him as the representative of that common humanity. It 
is on the basis of that common nature, that the gospel is com- 
manded to be preached to ' every creature,' and any one hu- 
man being has a right to consider that gospel as addressed to 
him, with as specific an intention, as any other human being 
whatever. It is on the basis of that common nature, also, that 
the Holy Spirit is sent down from heaven to awaken, convict, 
and convert the soul ; and any human being, no matter what 
his complexion, may regard the promise of the Holy Spirit to 
be as much addressed to him-as to any other one — though that 
other one may have a more comely form or complexion ; may 
be clothed in the imperial purple, or may wear a coronet, or a 
crown. In all respects pertaining to our common origin ; to 
our nature as distinct from the brute creation ; to the fall and 
to redemption, to the rights of conscience and to the hopes of 
glory, the human race is regarded in the Bible as on a level. 
There is an entire system of things, which contemplates man 
as such, as distinguished from the inferior creation ; not one of 
which pertains to a brute, however the brute may seem to ap- 
proximate a human being, and each one of which is as appli- 
cable to one human being as to another." 

" If these views are correct, then all the reliance which the 
system of slavery has ever been thought to derive from the 
supposed fact, that one class of human beings is essentially in- 
ferior to another, is a false reliance. At all events, such views 
will find no support in the Bible, and they must be left to be 
maintained by those, who recognize the Christian Scriptures as 
of no authority. A man acting on the views laid down in the 



44 

Bible on this subject, would never make a slave ; a man acting 
on these views would not long retain a slave; and Christianity, 
by laying down the doctrine of the essential equality of the 
race, has stated a doctrine which must sooner or later emanci- 
pate every human being from bondage."* 

One of the most graphic and thrilling of all the prophetical 
descriptions of the Messiah's spiritual reign upon the earth, is 
that in which he Sij)eaks in his own person, as "anointed to 
preach good tidings unto the meek ; " and as " sent to bind up 
the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the 
opening of the prison to them that are bound ; to proclaim the 
acceptable year of the Lord." If we do not greatly mistake, 
we have here a foreshadowing of the gospel, as the means of 
universal freedom, and, of course, universal emancipation. 
And every one will remember how at Nazareth, the whole of 
the prediction was read from " the book of the prophet," and 
with what unutterable earnestness "the eyes of all them that 
were in the synagogue were fastened on him," who " began to 
say to them, this day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." 

In the last words of the passage as he read it, namely — " /Ae 
acceptable year of the LojxV^ — there is an allusion most clearly 
to " the year of jubilee," that " fiftieth year," which the people 
of God were to " hallow," and in which " liberty " was to be 
" proclaimed throughout all the land." The same word for 
"liberty " is used in the words of Isaiah, or rather of the Mes- 
siah himself, as in the statute for the year of jubilee. In Jere- 
miah also (xxxiv. 8, 9.) the same is used to signify the eman- 
cipation of slaves ; referring to those Hebrews, who were held 
by their brethren in servitude. 

In the times of the prophets, and in the days of Christ and 
the apostles, the idea of slavery was scarcely separable from 
that of captivity. The Hebrews excepted, it was the universal 
custom, as we have before stated, to make slaves of captives in 
war. And without war and piracy, the demand for bond- 
servants could never have been supplied. Immense numbers 
of these were enslaved captives. 

If, moreover, instead of the single word "captives," in "the 
book of the prophet," we should read ^^ enslaved captives," — 
what prophecy can be named which has had a more unques- 
tionable or remarkable fulfillment, — since the Messiah "ascend- 
ed up where he was before " ? Such was the spirit of the 
gospel in the hearts of some of the early Christians and elders 
of the church, — that some of them expended large estates, to 
redeem captives. — Thus "Cyprian sent to the bishop of Nu- 
midia, in order to redeem some captives, 2,500 crowns. Socra- 

• Barnes, pp. 344-6. 



4§ 

t€S, the historian, says, that after the Romans had taken 7,000 
Persian captives, Acacius, bishop of Amida, melted the gold and 
silver plate of his church, with which he redeemed the captives. 
Ambrose of Milan did the same with the furniture of his 
church. It was the only case in which the imperial constitu- 
tions allowed the plate to be sold." (Bib. Rep. Oct. 1835. p. 
433.) There were instances, also, in which some of high 
standing and influence, not only sold their property, but them- 
selves, for the same purpose of delivering captives from 
bondage. 

To what but the influence of the gospel of the Prince of 
Peace, can we attribute the abrogation and entire abandonment 
of the custom of enslaving captives in war, among the nations 
of Europe, during the Middle Ages, and after those hordes of 
barbarians from Asia had become converts to the faith of Him 
"who came not to destroy men's lives but to save them"? 
Are not all Christian nations at this day the witnesses, that the 
gospel of the Son of God has been marvellously glorified, as a 
proclamation of "deliverance to the captives"? 

The early Christians manifested the same noble spirit of self- 
denial and self-sacrifice, for the deliverance of all that were in 
the bonds of slavery. Was it not because the spirit of Christ 
was in them ? And had it not been for the same spirit, would 
New England have become what it now is, in regard to free- 
dom ? Or Avould Great Britain have the glory of the West 
India emancipation ? 

From this view of the facts of history, at the time the proph- 
ecy in the book of Isaiah was uttered, — at the time also of its 
being read as it was, in the synagogue of Nazareth, — and in 
the ages which followed, — we cannot hesitate to consider the 
idea of servitude as so included in that of captivity, that all 
who are in mn-ighteous bonds, may justly claim to have been 
remembered in that prophetic proclamation of " the acceptable 
year of the Lord." So palpably inconsistent are the precepts 
and doctrines of " the glorious gospel of the blessed God," so 
totally irreconcilable, with the principle of slavery, — that it 
would have been strange indeed, if it had not been heralded in 
prophecy, as the harbinger and the means of universal emanci- 
pation. 

If it were not for the gospel, we might despair of the cause 
of freedom, political or personal. We should have no such 
bow of promise, as now greets our vision. 

He who so preached " as one having authority," " knew 
what was in man." With him " a thousand years were as one 
day." What was to be attempted or accomplished immediately, 
and what was left to " the fullness of time" in the future, when 
his "way should be prepared," could have been no secret. 
5* 



Even to his disciples, who had been so long under his immedi- 
ate instructions, he was obliged to say : — " I have yet many 
things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them now. But when 
he, the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth ; 
and he will show you things to come." How much more, 
then, would others have need of gradual illumination, in order 
that they might be prepared to acknowledge every just right of 
their fellow-men, cease from all wrongs, and redress all griev- 
ances ? 

By diffusing the gospel in its leading principles and precepts, 
among all classes of people, a quiet and bloodless revolution 
might be accomplished, in regard to slavery, to war, to despo- 
tism, and to all other gigantic forms of evil, in the social and 
civil relations of mankind. But, as it has been justly said, " if 
it had forbidden the evil, instead of subverting the principle ; 
if it had proclaimed the unlawfulness of slavery and taught 
slaves to resist the oppression of their masters ; it would in- 
stantly have arrayed the two parties in deadly hostility, through- 
out the civilized world ; its announcement would have been 
the signal of servile war; and the very name of the Christian 
religion would have been forgotten amidst the agitations of 
bloodshed. The fact, that under these circumstances, the gos- 
pel does not forbid slavery, affords no reason to suppose, that it 
does not mean to prohibit it ; much less does it afford ground 
for belief, that Jesus Christ intended to authorize it." * 

" The gospel is a universal rule. It prescribes no moral duty 
for one man, and excuses from that duty another, when both 
are under the same circumstances. If it prescribed the duty of 
manumitting their slaves to Christian masters, it must have 
prescribed it to all masters ; that is, it must have adopted that 
other mode of teaching hj precept, instead of teaching hy pi^in- 
dple. It therefore left the whole matter to the operation of 
principle. In all this may be seen the benevolence and long- 
mindedness of the Deity. God treats his intelligent creatures 
according to the nature which he has given them. He reveals 
his will. He promulgates truth of universal efficacy, but fre- 
quently allows long time to elapse, before the effect of it ap- 
pears, in order that the effect may be the more radical and com- 
prehensive." f 

The apostles were all freemen. They could have said with 
no unsuitable exultation, " We be Abraham's seed, and were 
never in bondage to any man." And imperfectly as they may 
have comprehended their Master's will, when they received 
their final charge, on the Mount of Olives, how can it be sup- 
posed, that they went forth to preach, as the gospel, a system 

* Wayland. t Letters to Dr. Fuller. 



47 

of doctrines and duties, that would sanction the slavery which 
they found in Asia, Greece and Rome, or the slavery which 
now exists in the United States ? And did Paul, who was 
afterwards added to their number, and to whom the rights of 
Roman freedom were so dear, — ever preach or indite a single 
sentence, which was meant to be understood as an approval or 
justification, either of ancient or modern slave-holding ? 

For our answer to questions like these, we are happy to have 
been so anticipated by the lofty and indignant protestation of 
one, who, " though dead," will long continue to " speak." 

" Had Napoleon, on capturing Berlin or Vierma, doomed most 
or the whole of their inhabitants to bondage ; had he seized on 
venerable matrons, the mothers of illustrious men, who were 
reposing, after virtuous lives, in the bosom of grateful families; 
had he seized on the delicate, refined, beautiful young woman, 
whose education had prepared her to grace the sphere in which 
God had placed her, and over all whose prospects the freshest 
hopes and most glowing imaginations of early life were breath- 
ed ; had he seized on the minister of religion, the man of 
science, the man of genius, the sage, the guides of the world ; 
had he scattered these through the slave-markets of the world, 
and transferred them to the highest bidders at public auction, 
the men to be converted into instruments of slavish toil, the 
women into intruments of lust, and both to endure whatever 
indignities and tortures absolute power can inflict, we should 
then have had a picture, in the present age, of slavery as it 
existed in the time of Paul. Such slavery, we are told, was 
sanctioned by the apostle ! Such, we are told, he pronounced 
to be morally right ! Had Napoleon sent some cargoes of these 
victims to these shores, we might have bought them, and de- 
graded the noblest beings to our lowest uses, and might have 
cited Paul to testify to our innocence ! Were an infidel to 
bring this charge against the apostle, we should say that he 
was laboring in his vocation ; but that a professed Christian 
should so insult this sainted philanthropist, this martyr to truth 
and benevolence, is a sad proof of the power of slavery to blind 
its supporters to the plainest truth." * 

To all this we respond our most hearty assent. A reply has 
been attempted with an ability and spirit worthy of a better 
cause and a more honorable purpose. f But in vain will any 
man, be his nominal or real "vocation" what it may, — or 
whether an apologist of slavery or an apologist /or its apologists, 
in vain will he " labor " to vindicate the lawfulness of slave- 
holding, by the instructions and conduct of the great apostle to 
the Gentiles. 



* Channing's Works, vol. II. f Biblical Repertory. 



Wherever Paul went, in countries out of Judea, lie must 
have foLHid a population in which the slaves generally out- 
numbered the freemen. This was certainly true in the large 
cities. The same gospel was preached to Jew and Greek, to 
bond and free. As both of the latter classes, as well as the for- 
mer, were among the hearers, we can imagine no reason why 
some slave-holders should not have been fonnd among the con- 
verts. We cannot doubt that there were " believing masters," 
whom converted slaves regarded as their own " brethren," in 
the bonds of a common service to a common Lord and Master. 
(1 Tim. vi. 2; Eph. vi. 9 ; Col. iv. 1 ; Philemon.) 

The evidence is to our minds' perfectly conclusive, that some 
of the members of the churches gathered by Paul and his asso- 
ciates, were admitted to the fellowship of kindred in Christ, 
without being required to emancipate their slaves, as a proof of 
their conversion and a condition of church-membership. There 
may have been much of private counsel, and much may have 
been done, or have been expected to be done, for the advantage, 
if not the manumission of bond-servants, concerning which 
there is neither record nor allusion. Instruction of which we 
have heard nothing was unquestionably given in regard to other 
subjects, as, for example, the observance of the Lord's day, in- 
stead of the seventh day. 

But let it be admitted that the relation of master and slave, 
in respect to natural right or moral principle, was not at any 
time made a subject of public discourse or of private counsel. 
Could not the apostles have done all, which is known, while 
yet neither apjiroving nor countenancing the system or the 
principle of slavery ? If they could not, — where is " the man 
of God " now living, who is not chargeable with duplicity, dis- 
honesty and hypocrisy, — while endeavoring to be " made all 
things to all men, — that " he " might by all means save some ?" 

Masters and servants, being members together of the same 
spiritual body, met at the place of worship and at the table of 
the Lord especially, as upon the same level. They were taught 
by the Scriptures, by word of mouth, and by Epistles, the same 
confession of faith, and the same rules of " newness of life." 
Whatever related to the duties of husbands and wives, parents 
and children, included servants as well as masters. But how 
could servants discharge those duties, unless their masters were 
to treat them, not as when all were together in bondage to 
"the god of this world," but as men who had become the 
Lord's freemen ; and who, although not formally released from 
the state of servitude, in which they were " called " to the 
'liberty of children of God,' yet found themselves in a most 
enviable condition, as compared with others, and with them- 
selves also, previous to the conversion of their masters ? 



49 

That such was really the change of condition in many in- 
stances, if not invariably, and that servants were to be, and 
were regarded as "above servants" and as "brethren beloved" 
by such masters as Philemon, is a natural conclusion from 
Paul's procedure in the case of Onesimus. The apostle would 
doubtless have exposed himself to the laws of the Roman em- 
pire, if he had acted as if harboring a runaway slave ; and such 
we are willing to concede, this Onesimus was, although there 
is some ground for a question in the premises. But if Onesi- 
mus had not preferred to return to the house of Philemon, we 
know not how Paul could have " sent him " thither. Not un- 
likely it was his own proposal, and the aid of Paul may have 
been solicited to secure for him a favorable reception. There 
may have been circumstances and reasons in view of both, 
which do not at all appear in the statements or allusions of the 
Epistle, which has given occasion for such conflicting com- 
ments. 

But who can read that Epistle, without seeing, if he will can- 
didly examine it, that in every part the writer assumes, that 
Philemon is a Christian, who would gladly receive Onesimus, 
now himself converted, and regard him as a servant, in name 
and form only ? Does not the whole spirit of it seem to take 
for granted, that Philemon is fully aware of the new mode of 
relation to Onesimus, which had sprung from their mutual 
bonds of fraternal love ? When Paul said, " For perhaps he 
departed for a season, that thou shouldst receive him forever," 
what hinders that we should perceive here a most beautiful, 
though indirect reference to their enduring relationship in the 
world to come ? And when he adds, " Not now as a servant,' 
but above a servant, a brother beloved, especially to me, but 
how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord," 
how is it possible, that he could have the least idea that Onesi- 
mus was going back, to be treated otherwise than most kindly, 
as one of the family of Philemon, in whose house he may have 
been born, and also as one who had rights as a Christian, which 
would certainly ensure such an acknowledgment of his rights 
as a man, as might soon, if not immediately, lead to his dis- 
charge from servitude ? There may be no sufficient historical 
ground for the tradition, that he received his freedom, and that 
he was afterwards a bishop of Berta ; — but the tradition has 
every probability in its favor. At a later period " when a slave 
became, with the consent of his master, a minister of the gos- 
pel, he was, by the very act, regarded as emancipated." 

In any event, the conduct of Paul aff'ords no sanction of the 
principle of slavery. Let ajl slave-holders feel and act towards 
their slaves, as Paul enjoined upon Philemon, or rather pre- 
sumed, that of course, he would, — and the slave-holding system 



50 

would at once be transformed in all its features and constituent 
properties ; and, at no distant day, there would be such a 
jubilee of emancipation, as the world has never known. 

It certainly was neither lawful nor expedient for Paul, or any 
of the apostles, to teach any such doctrine, as that slaves ought 
not to obey their masters ; and that if their masters would not 
set them free, they would be justified in running away. It 
would not only have aggravated the evils of slavery, in thou- 
sands of instances, but not a preacher of the gospel would have 
been suffered to go at large, with any such doctrine, if he was 
permitted by the civil authorities to live, any longer than the 
time necessary for his trial and condemnation. What would 
be the doom of any such preacher, at the present day, in any of 
the slave-holding Statss of the South? 

One of the natural consequences of the relation of equality 
and fraternity in the Lord, was the temptation of withholding 
that obedience and honor which servants had before rendered 
to their masters. And whether or not they had " believing 
masters," they might be so exalted in their own esteem, by the 
moral distinctions of their participation in the hopes and glories 
of the high calling of God, that they would not be inaccessible 
to insidious suggestions of their personal consequence; nor slow 
to make manifest a spirit of discontent, or of rebelliousness, 
which would operate most unfavorably for the character and 
progress of the gospel. From such sources or some others, 
there undoubtedly was an urgent occasion for injunctions, like 
that in the 1st Epistle to Timothy : " Let as many servants as 
are under the yoke count their masters worthy of all honor, 
that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. 
And they that have believing masters, let them not despise 
them, because they are brethren ; but rather do them service, 
because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit." 
(vi. 1,2.) 

In the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, (vii. 20-24.) it is said : 
" Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was 
called. Art thou called being a servant ? care not for it ; but if 
thou mayest be made free, use it rather. For he that is called 
in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman ; likewise 
also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant. Ye are 
bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men. Brethren, 
let every man, wherein he was called, therein abide with God." 
Of the same import and for the same purpose are the other pas- 
sages, in the Epistles, upon the same subject. (Col. iii. 22-25 ; 
Tit. ii. 9-10. Also 1st of Peter ii. 18-20.) And are we to 
consider such injunctions, as apostolical authority for slave- 
holding ? 

When did Paul ever say, Servants, obey your masters in 



61 

the Lord, for this is right ? And why did he not speak thus, 
as he did when inculcating fihal obedience ? If it was right 
in itself, and a moral diity according to " the law and the pro- 
phets," why did he not speak in the same manner, as to chil- 
dren ? ^ 

The motive, in every instance, was 7iot that of ohligatioji to 
the master, as if of right a slave-holder ; but that which arose 
from the relation of servants to the " Lord of all." They were 
to obey, that ' the name of God and his doctrine he not bias- 
pheined,^ * in singleness of heart, as unto Christ ; ' ' that tkey 
m,ay adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.' 
How does the principle of obligation here differ, from that 
which should constrain us to " resist not evil," and to " pray 
for them which despitefuUy use" us "and persecute" us? 
When smitten on the right cheek, if we turn the other also, 
do we thereby confess ourselves justly smitten ? We may suffer 
patiently, for the honor of God and the gospel, what we know 
to be the most flagrant injustice and inhuman oppression. And 
we may counsel others to suffer in like manner, if need be, 
" for conscience toward God." 

It is at least somewhat remarkable, that if the master had a 
right to be a master, such as could be recognized, independent- 
ly of the legal title which he held, — the slave should never 
have been exhorted by an appeal to such a right. But if there 
is any reference or allusion to the rigid of the master, as such, 
we have failed to discover it. 

In all their instructions, from first to last, the apostles appear 
to have aimed to promote a thorough conversion of every man 
to righteousness and true holiness ; as if such conversion would 
ultimately associate with its results, as consequence or accom- 
paniment, all that was most needful in the existing circumstan- 
ces of individuals and communities. Thus, while accounting 
freedom a great privilege, and a natural right indisputably, they 
could, in all godly sincerity and with the truest friendship for 
the slave, exhort him to make the greatest exertion to please 
his master, in every thing which his duty to God required or 
permitted ; and not to be discontented, if he should be com- 
pelled to remain in servitude. If he could have freedom, let 
him embrace it, as a state most desirable. Yet to be a freeman' 
in Christ was of vastly greater importance. And as his spiritual 
redemption had been already purchased at the price of the blood 
of the Son of God, let him consider himself exalted as a servant 
of God, and the " Lord's freeman," rather than depressed and 
humiliated by bondage to his fellow-man. 

Such injunctions and exhortations were perfectly consistent 
with an inward abhorrence of the principle of slave-holding. 
And the same may be said of those addressed to the masters 



52 

themselves. They were required to discharge their duties to 
their servants, with as conscientious a regard for the will of 
God and the love of Christ, as servants were required to exer- 
cise towards them. *' Ye masters, do the same things unto 
them, forbearing threatening; knowing that your Master also is 
in heaven ; neither is there respect of persons with him." (Eph. 
vi. 9.) And again the charge was, "Masters give unto your 
servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also 
have a Master in heaven." (Col. iv. 1.) This charge to those 
in the church of Colosse immediately follows the exhortation 
to servants, encouraging them to look for the reward of fidelity 
to their masters, in that inheritance which was theirs, as ser- 
vants of the Lord Christ. " But he that doeth wrong," it is 
significantly declared, both for servants and masters, — ^^ shall 
receive for the ^orong which he hath done: and theke is no 

RESPECT OF PERSONS." 

Notice also the exhortation subjoined, which must be under- 
stood as addressed to all, but would seem to have been pecu- 
liarly intended to touch the sympathies of masters. "Continue 
in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving ; withal 
praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of ut- 
terance, to speak the mystery of Christ, /or which I am also in 
hqnds : that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak. 
Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the 
time." The exceeding delicacy and tenderness of the allusion 
to the " bonds " in which the apostle himself was, because a 
faithful servant of Christ, is equalled only by the exquisite ele- 
gance and urbanity of the Epistle to Philemon. And surely no 
one of the servants in the church at Colosse could have had any 
question of the apostle's most cordial respect for them, as well 
as sympathizing interest in all their temporal jjrivations and 
hardships. As they heard his Epistle read, they would hear him 
speak of Onesimus, as "a faithful and beloved brother," and 
one of themselves, — and see Onesimus also, face to face, — who 
had been sent in company with Tychicus, that "he might 
know their estate and comfort their hearts." They would have 
been most unreasonable to have expected more from him, how- 
ever intolerable might have been their servitude. 

There is a consideration, also, which we deem worthy of no 
small account, in estimating the desirableness of freedom to the 
slave. It should be remembered, that much commotion had 
been already made by the news "of the gospel ; and many 
thought that the " doctrine according to godHness " must be 
resisted and crushed, or it would " turn the world upside 
down." Dreadful persecutions had already been experienced, 
and there was an evident expectation, that more "perilous 
times" (2 Tim. iii. 1.) were about to come. If such was the 



m 

" distress " then " present," that the apostle advised all, who 
were unmarried, not to marry, if tliey would have the less of 
" trouble in the flesh ; " if such were the uncertainties of all 
earthly things, that it " remained, that both they that had 
wives," should " be as though they had none, and they that 
rejoiced, as though they rejoiced not, and they that bought, as 
though they possessed not ;" — is it improbable, that from the 
whole aspect of the " fashion of the world " as then before him 
and as " passing away," he could not but feel, that the question 
of personal freedom was of comparatively little moment to any 
one, in whom Christ had been formed " the hope of glory ? " 
Vastly different are the circumstances of slaves at the present 
day ! And even in the primitive churches, freedom soon came 
to be esteemed an invaluable privilege. Emancipation was 
frequently solemnized in the church with very impressive cere- 
monies. 

In times of persecution the slave would obviously be less ex- 
posed to die as a martyr by popular violence, or in the regular 
course of law. The master would be the victim, in preference. 
And to both masters and slaves, who had hope in Christ, how 
animating must have been those sublime views of " the liberty 
of the children of God," when they have left the body, and 
when the " redemption of the body shall be consummated aj 
the resurrection of the just ! " (Rom. viii. ; 1 Cor. xv.) 

But suppose, that it was a hard struggle for the slave, to re- 
main quietly and contentedly, if he saw no prospect of being 
free from his master, until the grave was opened to receive his 
mortal nature. With all that he may have had to endure and 
all that he may have needed of the graces of meekness and 
patience, — we are not sure, that " the believing master " did 
not have the bitterest experience, and did not need the largest 
measure of the virtues of " the new man," that he might do 
the will of God. The natural rights of the slave being fully 
admitted, there would yet be questions, upon which " the 
flesh " and " the spirit" would have not a little of sharp con- 
tention. Were not men in those circumstances, to be instruct- 
ed, and " besought, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ ?" 

Although not a word may have been spoken upon the rights 
of the master or the wrongs of the servant, it must not be for- 
gotten, that Paul has classified ^^ men- stealer s,^^- with the most 
abandoned and abominable of the workers of iniquity, and- 
enemies of all righteousness. (1 Tim. i. 10.) The moral dis- 
tance was not so great between the kidnapper and the slave- 
dealer, that both of them alike may not have been denoted by 
the term, which he employed. Neither was the distance so 
great, certainly in many cases, between the slave-dealer and 
the slave-holder, as not unnaturally to occasion in Christian 
6 



64 

masters some very anxious "searchings of heart." What 
would have been the effect of any other treatment, than that 
which they received from their spiritual fathers and instructors? 
"What if Paul had not been "gentle among " them, " even as 
a nurse cherisheth her children ? " How could they, unmoved, 
receive injunctions to " give unto their servants that which is 
just and equal," while so solemnly reminded of the judgment- 
seat of Christ, with whom "is no respect of persons," and so 
affectionately solicited to pray for the opening of a door of ut- 
terance, to speak the mystery of Christ for which also the apos- 
tle was in those " bonds," and wearing that " chain ? " How- 
could they meet their servants upon the basis of equality as 
freemen and brethren in the Lord ; how co-operate in seeking 
the salvation of others, as well as promoting their own, and en- 
deavor, in unity of faith to fulfill their mutual responsibilities of 
love to God and love to man ; — and yet never have a thought 
of the inevitable tendency of such a relationship and fellowship 
to "break every yoke " but " the yoke " of Christ ? As they 
became more and more "enlightened" in the "eyes" of their 
" understanding," how could they fail to see that they were 
not " giving that which is just and equal," unless they gave 
their servants their freedom, at an early day ; or retained them, 
•regarding them as if " hired servants," and having no wish or 
purpose to uphold and perpetuate an institution, so contrary to 
the natural and the moral rights of every human being ? 

That the effects of the gospel were most happy, in amelio- 
rating the condition of slaves, in different countries, where the 
holy influence of its principles was permitted silently to operate, 
is amply proved in what remains to us of the history of the 
primitive churches. Much was to be done, a labor of years 
and of generations was to be accomplished, — before the right 
of slave-holding, which was so taken for granted among all 
heathen nations, could be openly resisted, and the institution 
of slavery, in its principle, be assailed, with the least hope of 
success. And it is not easy for any one to estimate the magni- 
tude, the immensity of the work, which Christianity had to 
perform, before idolatry could be extirpated, and slavery abol- 
ished, in the civilized world. Both the one and the other 
bowed before it. And the glory of the moral triumph, un- 
counted millions of "sons and daughters of the Lord Almigh- 
ty " will celebrate, through everlasting ages. 

It could have been no time-serving policy, no fear of personal 
consequences, that could have had influence upon Paul, in 
treating as he did, the trying subject of slavery. He did what 
was expedient, according to the " wisdom that is from above," 
which "is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be en- 
treated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and with- 



55 

out hypocrisy ; " not that which "is earthly, sensual, devilish," 
with "envying and strife, confnsion and every evil work." 
He "went about doing good," and followed in close proximity 
the steps of his adorable Leader "who did no sin, neither was 
guile foinid in his mouth." 

And if there is to be any impeachment of his integrity and 
honesty, on the ground that he ought to have done far other- 
wise, than he did, if really opposed to the principle of slave- 
holding, as m utter conflict with the principles of the gospel ; — 
then it would, perhaps, be not inappropriate to inquire, how 
such impeachment could be issued, without a direct imputation 
upon the veracity and holiness of " God only wise," — in the 
method and means, which have distinguished the whole course 
of his providence and grace. 

" hi trust with the gospel," the apostle was accustomed to 
" speak, not as pleasing men, but God ; " " neither at any time 
used flattering words, nor a cloak of coveiousness ; nor of men 
sought glory." If there ever was a man, who is entitled to 
everlasting remembrance and gratitude for his noble deeds, 
when in ihe fear of God, a fearless champion of human rights 
and liberties, — that man was Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. 
And to interpret his words, or his example, as authority for the 
right of slave-holding, is, as we must be allowed to say, a libel 
upon his memory, of which no one would intentionally be 
guilty, unless willing also to despise and blaspheme the gospel 
and the name of "the great God and our Saviour Jesus 
Christ." 

Far be it from us to " bring railing accusation." We would 
"deal kindly" while we "deal truly" with all, who have the 
immediate responsibility of action, by means and measures for 
the removal of slavery from this land. We would not forget 
the example of the founders of the churches of Christ among 
the slave-holding Gentiles. Neither can we forget, that the cir- 
cumstances in which those churches were established, were 
very different from those in which Christian churches now exist 
in our Southern States. Most sincerely do we believe, that, if 
all Christians in these States were to " do with their might " 
what they can find to be done, — the love of Christ constraining 
them ; — if they would detach themselves from all personal con- 
nection with the system of slavery, so that their influence 
should not " throw the sacred shield of religion over so great 
an evil, there is no public sentiment in this land — there could 
be none created, that would resist the power of such testimony. 
There is no power out of the church, that could sustain slavery 
an hour, if it were not sustained m it. Not a blow need be 
struck. Not an unkind word need be uttered. No man's mo- 
tive need be impugned ; no man's proper rights invaded. All 



-\ 



56 

that is needful is, for each Christian man, and for every Chris- 
tian church, to stand up in the sacred majesty of such a solemn 
testimony ; to free themselves from all connection with the 
evil, and utter a calm and deliberate voice to the world, and 

THK WOHK WILL BE PONE."* 

Christianity demands the use of every available means for 
the intellectual and moral improvement of all orders and classes 
of men. It enforces a most sacred respect for the purity of 
woman, the rights and duties and privileges of husband and 
wife, parent and child. It can sanction no laws, usages or ex- 
pedients, designed to keep men in ignorance or degradation, of 
any kind or degree. How then can any Christian desire the 
continuance of the, slave-holding system in our country ? How 
can any speak in its defence, or publish apologies in its behalf, 
— the whole tendency of which is to prolong, if not to perpet- 
uate the evils and abominations, which will never cease, while 
the system is sustained, and which Christianity can no more 
cherish, than it can sanctify adultery and murder ? 

The Bible is for the slave, no less than for the master. Every 
word of God is to the slave as a man, as much as to any other 
man living. And after all that could be said of the opportuni- 
ties afforded to learn the great truths of the Holy Scriptures, it 
is most certain, that there are obligations implied in the doc- 
trines and precepts of the gospel, which it is impossible for 
slaves to fulfill. 



We cannot pursue this investigation, consistently with the 
limits to which we may be expected to confine ourselves. It 
would be too much to anticipate the entire acquiescence of the 
more than five hundred members of this Convention of Congre- 
gational Ministers in every sentiment or form of expression ; but 
we shall be much disappointed, if the premises upon which we 
confidently rest our conclusions do not receive a response from 
this body, which will give to this part of our Report the moral 
power of their unanimous concurrence and their cordial appro- 
bation. 

Such views of the Scriptures, together with an ardent love 
of liberty, have tended, from an early period in the history of 
the American people, to concentrate the thoughts and the efforts 
of enlightened and conscientious men, and, indeed, of whole 
communities in the free States, in opposition to slavery. 

A brief account of what has been done under these influ- 
ences for the extinction of slavery, not only in our own land, 

* Barnes. 



67 

but in other parts of the world — together with some suggestions 
in regard to methods of producing increased efforts in favor of 
universal emancipation, forms a part of the analysis of our 
subject. 



In February, 1638, there came to Massachusetts from Tortu- 
gas, "a cargo of cotton, tobacco, salt mtd negroes.^^ How 
many of these last there were, is not known. Neither have 
we found any record of the feelings, which were expressed in 
regard to them ; although there can be no doubt, that they 
were brought as slaves.* But in the Body of Laws adopted by 
the General Court of Massachusetts, in 1641, it is declaredj 
that " there shall never be any bond slaverie, villinage, or cap- 
tivitie amongst us, unless it be lawfull captives taken in just 
warres, and such strangers as willingly selle themselves or are 
sold to us. And these shall have all the liberties and Christian 
usages which the law of God established in Israeli concerning 
such persons doeth morally require. This exempts none from 
servitude, who shall be judged thereto by authorilie." 

They are familiar facts — that when Thomas Key son, (or, 
Kezar,) and James Smith imported a number of slaves into 
Massachusetts, in 1645, the citizens of Boston denoiyiced them 
and all others engaged in the same traffic as " malefactors and 
murderers;" committed them to prison; — bore public testi- 
mony against " the heinous crime of man-stealing ; " — and or- 
dered the negroes to be restored at the public charge to their 
native country, — the General Court at the same time, by letter, 
expressing their indignation at their wrongs ; also, that, in 
1652, the General Court of Rhode Island passed a well-consid- 
ered law to this effect, — " That no black mankind or white 
being, shall be forced by covenant, bond, or otherwise, to serve 
any man, or his assigns longer than ten years " — and that the 
man that will not let them go free, or shall sell them away else- 
where, to the end that they may be enslaved to others a longer 
time, he or they shall forfeit to the Colony forty pounds." 
And equally familiar is the melancholy fact, that these honora- 
ble movements of the Fathers of New England, two centuries 
ago, were thwarted and overruled by the covetousness and des- 
potic authority of the mother country. Their wise enactments 
were set aside, and their consciences and rights subjected to the 
capricious will of an unjust foreign government, 

The spirit that claims for the African, as well as the Eu- 
ropean, the inalienable right of personal liberty, however it 

* Collections of the American Statistical Association, Vol. I. p. 200. 

6* 



68 

may at times have been smothered by intrigue or overpowered 
by force, has never slumbered in New England. EnUghtened 
and philanthropic minds have ever been awake and active. 
Ralph Sandiford, in 1729, and Benjamin Lay, in 1737, and 
how many others at earlier and later periods we know not, 
wrote and published facts on North American slavery which 
awakened intense feeling, and prepared the public mind for effi- 
cient action, whenever the independence of the colonies should 
present the opportunity. Still, it must be confessed, that the 
subject was then but imperfectly understood in its great moral 
bearings ; and that not a few, while cherishing the philan- 
thropic spirit of the gospel, were so far under the influence of 
temporary delusion, that they bought and sold their servants, 
with scarcely more consciousness of wrong-doing, than when 
they held an apprentice on the strength of legal indentures. 
Devout men felt little scruple to do what Abraham and David 
and Philemon were believed to have done, and what the Holy 
Spirit was thought to have sanctioned. Yet they commiserated 
the slave, and spared no pains to raise him to an intellectual and 
spiritual elevation like their own. 

But in 1774, when the day of our Independence began to 
dawn, the Legislatures of Rhode Island and Connecticut pro- 
hibited the importation of slaves within their respective bounds, 
Massachusetts abolished slavery within her limits in 1780, and 
embodied the act of abolition in the Bill of Rights prefixed to 
her constitution. New Hampshire and Vermont followed her 
example — the one in 1792 and the other in 1793 — both provid- 
ing constitutionally, for immediate abolition. Pennsylvania 
passed laws in 1780, for the gradual extinction of the system. 
Connecticut and Rhode Island did the same in 1784 ; New 
York in 1799, and 1817; and New Jersey in 1804. Maine, 
as an independent State, has never been contaminated with 
the evil. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and 
Iowa, through the ordinance of 1787, have been spared its with- 
ering curse. 

During the past seventy years, the subject has been freely 
and ably discussed in the free States by theologians, such as 
Hopkins, Edwards, Channing, Wayland and Barnes ; by able 
men also of other learned professions and by the people gener- 
ally, in all its moral bearings, as well as its influence on the 
weal of the country and the destiny of the African. Neither 
its social, political, economical, nor religious aspects have been 
disregarded. Revelation and reason, history and philosophy^ 
wit and common sense, legislatitjn and associated action, have 
all been employed to enlighten the public mind, purify the pop- 
ular sentiment, and direct the combined energies of the com- 
munity to the early and complete annihilation of the mammoth 



evil. And that its annihilation has not yet been effected, is less 
to be ascribed to any inherent defect in the conduct of these 
discussions, than to strong prejudices in favor of a time-honored 
iniquity, imbedded in the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the 
eye, and the pride of life. Still, infirmity is inseparable from 
humanity in its present condition. From this infirmity flow 
misapprehensions of fact, mistakes of judgment, and errors in 
feeling and action. No man may claim infallibility for his 
opinions or movements, till he can claim exemption from the 
unhappy liabilities of our common nature. And allowing that 
whatever has been done to remove from us the curse of slavery, 
has been done with the purest regard to the good of man and 
the glory of God, it by no means follows, that all things have 
been done in perfect. wisdom. The peculiar circumstances of 
the slave-holder which would tend to mitigate undue severity 
of judgment in his case may not at all times have been suffi- 
ciently considered ; and we are quite sure, that the peculiar 
circumstances of the slave, demanding the interposition of 
Christian benevolence in his behalf, have been too coldly re- 
garded. Such as God has made man, physically, intellectually 
and morally, so does God deal with him, and so should he be 
dealt with by his fellow-men. He has not made him a ma- 
chine, to be driven by the force of wind or steam, nor a brute 
to be urged on by the goad or the spear, nor a slave to go and 
come at a master's bidding, nor likelssachar to crouch down be- 
tween two burdens ; but he has made him in his own image, 
and thereby rendered any assault on his personal rights a crime. 
To secure him against this, it should be enough to know that 
he is a Man — the embodiment of whatever of intellectual or 
moral worth, God has seen fit to pour into the bosom of our 
world. Let the slave-holder as well as the slave be treated as 
a man. Let his misconceptions of the Law of God, his false 
views of the divine structure of human society, and of the 
rights of those whom he holds in servitude, be met in the spirit 
of kindness and brotherly love, and removed, if possible, by 
flooding his mind with new light. Let his intelligence be 
honored by the appliance of sound reasoning ; let his sensibili- 
ties be moved by direct address to the noblest afl'ections of his 
nature ; and let his moral sense be reached, through his un- 
questioned relations to God and eternity — and if his errors be 
not at once overpowered, he may be ultimately won to faith in 
correct principles, and to a corresponding discharge of his rela- 
tive duties. 

Our confidence of success, however, must rest on God alone. 
His arm must bring deliverance to the bond-man ; and for this, 
his Spirit must illumine the mind and touch the heart of the 
taskmaster. It is our privilege and duty, however, to be la- 



borers together with Him ; nor is any man so elevated or de- 
pressed in the sphere of his action, so widely known or obscure 
among his fellow-men, so abounding in wealth or sunk in pov- 
erty, that he may not walk hand in hand with the Universal 
Ruler, in this pathway of high and holy achievement; for no 
man living is destitute of influence in the sphere where Heaven 
has placed him. The little Israelitish maid in the court of 
Syria is not a less important agent in the accomplishment of 
heaven's high purposes, than the Egyptian Pharaoh or the 
Chaldean monarch ; and it depends not on learning, wealth or 
fame to determine the nature or extent of the influence ema- 
nating from any single mind, and exerting control over other 
minds. 

To the formation of a correct public sentiment, all labor and 
influence must be primarily directed. In a country like ours, 
where distinctions of rank, hereditary honors and exclusive 
privileges are all but unknown — where all opinions are freely 
canvassed, and adopted or rejected at pleasure, and where the 
day laborer uses the ballot box as eff"ectively as the most emi- 
nent statesman, it is not possible to achieve so high a moral 
end, except through the enlightenment of the public mind, and 
the more thorough purification of the great heart of the Repub- 
lic. Nor is this enlightenment and purification to be efl^'ected, 
but by the increased difl'usion of the spirit of the gospel. In 
that spirit lies the germ, not only of all that is holy before God, 
but of all that is noble and beneficent in the actings of man's 
moral and spiritual nature. Let it possess all hearts, and be- 
come the universal regulator of human conduct, and the world 
is disenthralled, and at once mirrors forth the happiness of 
heaven. 

To the diff'usion of this spirit, every one is virtually pledged, 
who stands committed to the great interests of philanthropy. 
Every human tongue, indeed, is bound to take up heaven's 
message of love, and mingle its notes of "good will to men," 
with those of the angelic choir ; and whoever casts off" the ob- 
ligation, needs the remonstrances of fraternal love, and the 
teachings of Christian fidelity, to bring him back to duty and to 
God. But, whoever else may be dumb, when the cause of 
love to our neighbor needs exposition or enforcement, it is not' 
the Minister uf Christ. Let his aflTections ever be stirred 
within him, and his mind awakened to the claims of down- 
trodden humanity, and his lips opened to pour forth the warn- 
ings of Heaven upon the oppressor, with its commands and en- 
treaties to repentance and the abandonment of his evil ways. 
It is a subject that demands his earnest study, as involving the 
vitalities of the Christian faith, and the clearest practical de- 
monstrations of the superiority of revealed religion ; it demands 



61 

of him the full development of its moral bearings, under all the 
solemnities of his commission as an ambassador for Christ, and 
with all the eloqnence he can draw from the schools of pro- 
phets and apostles. Whatever else is silent, the pnlpit must 
speali. Whoever beside may indulge in a dignified indifference, 
the minister of Christ must lift his voice like a trumpet. 

Next to the pulpit comes the Prk.ss, with its mighty en- 
ginery, fearlessly to encounter prejudice, battle ignorance, 
stimulate to intellectual effort and triumph over fanaticism, 
with all else that conflicts with truth and love. Directed by 
the spirit of philanthropy, it issues neither the daily or weekly 
Paper, nor the elaborate Quarterly in vain, while the Tract, and 
the stately Volume, each in its appropriate sphere contributes 
powerfully to the wished-for result. True, it has not always 
been faithful to this holy cause. True, it has sometimes fallen 
into unworthy hands, and has scattered firebrands, arrows and 
death over the fair fields of freedom. But this is not its own 
fault ; and since God honors it to convey the " lively oracles" to 
the ends of the earth, it becomes us to honor it also, by making 
it the medium of communication with all accessible minds, that 
if possible, misapprehensions maybe corrected, just principles 
established, and the spirit of freedom infused into all hearts. 

And then, associated action, in well devised forms, and 
under due restrictions, must succeed isolated and individual 
effort. "Union is strength." "Two are better than one." 
But the object of the association must be single, and the eye of 
its members must also be single. To emancipate the slave 
wherever found, from the yoke of the oppressor, and give him 
the civil equality which is his inalienable right, is an object of 
sufficient grandeur to draw upon the energies of any human 
mind to the utmo.-^t, and needs no combination with it of radi- 
cal revolution in church or state. Wisdom is doubtless profit- 
able to direct, in this case as in all others. It is only necessary 
that action be regulated by the spirit of love and deference to 
divine authority. If State or National Legislatures can be led to 
constitutional and energetic movement by the publicly declared 
sentiments of their constituents, then let petitions embodying 
those sentiments in respectfnl language, load their tables from 
session to session, and be urged by faithful men with thunder- 
ing eloquence upon the ears of the listless and averse ; or, if this 
avail not, and men are found in our public councils ready to 
sell the birth-right of the slave for a mess of pottage, notwith- 
standing the claims of God and humanity, let them receive im- 
mediate dismission from the service of freemen, without regard 
to their political orthodoxy in other respects. Whoever will 
sacrifice the rights of hnmanity vested in an individual of Afri- 
can descent, is demonstrably unfit to be trusted with the pre- 



servation of those rights in his constituents. He that wants 
philanthropy wants patriotism. He that rescues not the man 
fallen among thieves, resists not the cry that urges the cruci- 
fixion of the Son of God. The betrayer of the poorest man, in 
whose veins runs a brother's -blood, wants but the opportunity 
and the temptation to betray the brother of high degree. It 
should therefore be the determination of every patriotic mind, 
to bring his undivided influence to bear upon the election of 
discerning and high minded friends of universal liberty, to all 
places of honor and trust. 

In all this, it hardly must be said, that we propose any thing 
new, nor do we claim to be wiser than all that have gone be- 
fore us in the labors of philanthropy. Numerous associations 
have been already formed, and numerous presses have been en- 
listed in the cause ; the pulpit has sometimes spoken forth in 
tones of power, and the popular lecturer has traversed the land; 
the author in his study, and the orator at the forum have elabo- 
rated argument in every form, and played skilfully on those 
chords of the human heart that discourse sweet music in the 
ears of Heaven ; resolves have occasionally passed our State 
Legislatures, nobly sustaining the public sentiment that gave 
them birth, and petitions, flowing by thousands into the halls of 
Congress, have excited able and animated discussion; Greek 
has met Greek on those high places of the field, and auspicious 
results have already appeared. But the policy of the govern- 
ment is yet undecided, and much remains to be done, through 
every organ that can reach the public ear or affect the public 
heart, to give full utterance to the quickened sympathies of 
philanthropic bosoms, and constrain the rulers of the nation to 
do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly. Words of truth and 
soberness may safely be spoken at all times, in all places and 
by all persons; and such words are clearly demanded, by the 
simple grandeur of the object contemplated, its preciousness to 
the heart of God, its congeniality with all the interests of man, 
the certainty of its ultimate attainment, and the prospect of a 
speedy and effectual termination of the miseries of the victims 
of oppression. 

We should be unjust to the cause of freedom, if we did 
not refer to the plan of colonizing emancipated slaves, with 
others of the colored race, upon the shores of Africa. Very 
many of our most intelligent and philanthropic citizens regard 
this plan, as entitled to vastly more favor than it has hitherto 
received. Yet, as is well known, it has been strenuously op- 
posed ; and there are questions involved in it, upon which there 
is still no inconsiderable diversity and contrariety of opinion. 
To enter upon a discussion of these would lead us aside from 



68 

the main object, which we would hope to accotnphsh in this 
Report. 

Connected also with the plan of colonization is another point 
of our subject, upon which we deem it appro})riate to say a 
word. We refer to the alledged want of capacity in the African 
race for an intelligent use of liberty. And in this view, to say 
nothing of other points, which are of great interest, it would 
seem to your Committee, that the history and the present state 
of the colony of Liberia, is worthy of the careful and candid 
consideration of all, who have any doubts in regard to the 
natural capabilities of the African race, for all the demands of a 
well-ordered and happy social organization. 

We must remark, however, that facts from other sources of 
evidence are so accumulated and so overpowering, that incre- 
dulity in respect to such capabilities is nothing short of arrant 
folly or absolute stolidity. Illustrious African names, it is well 
known, adorn the early history of the Christian church, as well 
as the annals of ancient literature and government ; whilst at 
this moment there are in our own land orators of African de- 
scent, and fugitives from slavery, too, whose eloquence attracts 
and impresses large and cultivated assemblies. ]?ut, as if to 
afford to all nations a signal exemplification of the capacity of 
that race, and to put the question forever at rest, divine Provi- 
dence has planted the colony and established the government 
of Liberia. We would, therefore, call attention, for a moment, 
to the condition of the people of that Republic. 

The plan of forming a colony on the coast of Africa origina- 
ted, it is believed, in the heart of northern benevolence, and 
was matured by the wisdom and prayerfulness of Finley, Cald- 
well, Mills, and a few others of whom the world was not 
worthy, and who now sleep in death. Thirty-two years have 
passed away, and several thousands of the victims of oppression, 
denied their natural rights in the country of their birth, have 
been transported to the land of their fathers, and there allowed 
to enjoy them unmolested. Three hundred miles of continuous 
sea-coast have been secured to them for an inheritance, and 
placed under a government as just and stable as our own. Li- 
beria has ceased to be a colony. She has become an independ- 
ent State, a Republic, a land of the free ; and every office in 
her government, from the highest to the lowest, is filled by 
men of the African race ; and so well filled, that there is more 
hope of the permanence of the Republic of Liberia, than of 
that of France. Liberia is at this moment well supplied with 
preachers and teachers of every grade, chiefly of African des- 
cent. The New England system of common schools is in full 
operation ; as is also that of higher seminaries ; and the children 
are found to be as tractable, as ingenious, and as studious, as 



64 

the children of pure Anglo-Saxon parents. President Roberts, 
an African by descent, and having enjoyed only a Liberian 
education, has stood with credit to himself before the statesmen 
and diplomatists of England, France and America, negotiating 
not only an acknowledgment of Liberian nationality, but also 
treaties of amity and commerce. The people of Ljiberia are an 
independent and recognized nation, with a constitution as pure 
in its principles and liberal in its provisions, with laws as equi- 
table and salutary, and an administration as incorrupt and judi- 
cious, as are enjoyed by any people under heaven. Their 
peace is as a river, and their righteousness as the waves of the 
sea. Habits of industry and frugality are cherished by them, 
and the useful productions of the earth are cultivated with suc- 
cess, so as not only to supply abundantly the demands of home 
consumption, but to seek a market in foreign lands, and give a 
strong impulse to commercial enterprise. So marked are the 
indications of public prosperity and individual welfare, that 
whole tribes of the ignorant and debased natives, with their 
kings, are soliciting a participation of their immunities, and 
pledging their lands, persons and children — their all, indeed — 
to the interest of the government in return. The result of this 
experiment, as it appears to us, and we think must appear to all 
fair minded men, demonstrates the capacity of the Africans for 
all that constitutes a Christian civilization. 

We present these facts to our Southern fellow-citizens, be- 
seeching them to settle it in their own minds as an indisputable 
truth, that the argument by which they have so long endeavor- 
ed to justify slavery, from the supposed incapacity of the Afri- 
can race for safe and useful self-direction, in any circumstances, 
is wholly groundless. Let them be assured, that those immortal 
beings whom they doom by their iron laws to perpetual servi- 
tude, ignorance and degradation, are capable, in such circum- 
stances as an enlightened philanthropy may devise, of rising to 
the attainment of an intellectual and moral character, of a 
Christian faith and piety which shall render them peers of the 
men of other races now rejoicing in the blessings of freedom, 
knowledge and religion. When this truth is fully believed and 
felt, we are confident that philanthropy and the sense of justice 
in the slave-holding States will array themselves efficiently on 
the side of that sentiment now so active in the Christian world, 
which is demanding the recognition of human rights, and of 
that Almighty Providence, which, in tones both of terror and of 
love, is proclaiming "liberty to the captive." 

The signs of the times are auspicious. A sentiment of free- 
dom unknown before has recently arisen, which is upheaving 
the nations, demanding the redress of wrongs, and insisting on 
the universal emancipation of the oppressed. As when Chris- 



6S 

tianity was first proclaimed in the midst of paganism, the tem- 
ples and statues of idolatry crumbled in quick succession before 
it, so now through the enlightening influences of the same faith, 
the clouds of oppression are beginning to retire, and in rapid 
succession the chains are falling from whole people in bondage. 
Within the last quarter of a century a new impulse has been 
given to freedom. State after state has published its testimony 
against the intolerable wrong of slavery. And now, drawing 
our conclusions from the ))ublic acts of the civilized and Chris- 
tianized world, we hazard nothing when we aver that the voice 
of Christendom is against it. He who now undertakes to de- 
fend the institution of Slavery, does it in the face of the clear- 
est, the most sincerely expressed convictions of almost every 
Christian comitry on the globe. He who shall defend it, de- 
fends that which Christendom with concurrent voice has united 
to reprobate, and is hastening to destroy. 



It would be easy to collect a mass of enlightened names, in 
all ages and countries, against the system, as opposed alike by 
reason and religion. But our appeal shall be made to acts of 
public bodies, of parliaments and councils of state — and from 
these we can make good the assertion, that slavery, like piracy 
and robbery, wherever it exists, exists in opposition to the con- 
demning voice of the Christian world. 

Let us take the last quarter of a century, and see how often 
and under what variety of forms public condemnation has been 
passed on the whole system of slavery, under every name. 

We begin with Austria, that large and influential European 
state. On the 25lh day of June, 1826, "it was declared by 
an ordinance of his Imperial and Royal Majesty the Emperor, 
that any slave from the moment he treads the soil of the Impe- 
rial and Royal Dominions of Austria, or even merely steps on 
board an Austrian vessel, shall be free." Brief aiid comprehen- 
sive words ! Uttered by the constituted head and the united 
voice of more than thirty millions of people. 

Pass on now to the Spanish provinces, that extend across the 
whole northern portions of South America, between the Atlan- 
tic and Pacific oceans. They had thrown otf the yoke of the 
mother country, and under the names of Columbia and Bolivia, 
comprising a population of nearly five millions more, had taken 
their place among modern republics. In 1828 they proclaimed 
freedom to all the slaves. Certain revenues were set apart for 
the purpose of carrying the act of emancipation into execution, 
and children born after a certain period were to be free. 
7 



ee 

Then followed the neighboring state of Mexico in the same 
glorious career. Having in like manner achieved her own in- 
dependence, she published, Sept. 15, 1829, a decree for the en- 
tire abolition of slavery, containing these remarkable words; 
" Being desirous to signalize the anniversary of independence 
by an act of national justice and beneficence, which may re- 
dound to the advantage and support of so inestimable a good, 
which may tend to the aggrandizement of the Republic, and 
which may reinstate an unfortunate portion of its inhabitants 
in the sacred rights which nature gave them, and ihe nation 
should protect by wise and wholesome laws — I (the President) 
have resolved to decree that Slavery is and shall remain abol- 
ished in this Republic." Whatever may be the fate of this 
distracted, unhappy Republic, in the darkest hour of her degra- 
dation, this act will ever be a bright remembered page in her 
history. 

Then we have to record the Act of the British Government, 
by which, Aug. 1, 1834, 800,000 slaves were set free in a day, 
in the British West India Islands. This act, the most memora- 
ble in the modern history of emancipatioUj was carried into 
effect without bloodshed, without tumult, or the outbreak of 
violent passion, but with the solemn enthusiasm becoming the 
great occasion, in the places of religious worship, amid prayers 
and hymns of praise. The experiment is now in a course of 
successful operation. If there have been temporary drawbacks, 
arising frorrt the very nature of the case, it is now proved be- 
yond a doubt, not only that it may be made without hazard, 
but that the great gift of liberty cannot be bestowed upon any 
without physical and moral advantage to all. 

We hasten to another testimony, to show the settled con- 
viction which prevails respecting the wrong and inhumanity of 
slavery. We refer to the decrees of the late head of the Ro- 
man Catholic church. December 13, 1839, Gregory XVI. pub- 
lished once more the earnest remonstrances of the Catholic 
church against every species of involuntary servitude. He 
says, — " We admonish by our apostolical authority and urgently 
invoke in the name of God all Christians of whatever condi- 
tion, that none, henceforth, dare subject to slavery, unjustly 
persecute, or despoil of their goods, Indians, Negroes, or any 
other classes of men." — A protest urged again by the present 
Pontiff in language as emphatic and authoritative. 

There is a contagion in the spread of liberty. The spirit 
which succors the down-trodden, and remembers the forgotten, 
is wafted like winged seed into most congenial spots, and takes 
root in unlooked-for places. Hence, as we pass from the cen- 
tre of civilization and religion to a semi-barbarous region, there 
is another testimony to the worth of individual freedom. The 



67 

Bey of Tunis, at the head of two miUions of subjects, January 
22, 1846, declared his sovereign pleasure in the following terms: 
"The servitude imposed on a part of the human kind whom 
God has created, is a very cruel thing, and our heart shrinks 
from it. Now, therefore, we have thought proper to publish 
that we have abolished men's slavery throughout our dommions, 
inasmuch as we regard all slaves who are on our territory as 
free, and do not recognize the legality of their being kept as 
property." We have here a sentiment worthy of a most en- 
iightened Christian ruler ! 

Soon afterwards, in a little kingdom hard by the frozen zone, 
the heart of royalty is melted, and a decree is issued by the 
king of Denmark, in which it is proclaimed, July 3, 1848, " that 
all utifree in Danish West India Islands are from to-day eman- 
cipated." It is added in the St. Thomas Times, two days 
afterwards : " The lively joy with which the boon was received 
by the unfree in the Island can be easily imagined; but we are 
happy to state that although the decree was so sudden, so un- 
expected, no other sounds were heard but those of rejoicing and 
thankfulness." 

Early in the same year, the Provisional Government 
of France decreed the emancipation of slavery in all her colo- 
nies. When the great capital had driven the king from his 
throne, and the nation was emancipated, the first act was to 
strike off the chains from the limbs of the slave, within the 
farthest bounds of the Republic. In some of the provinces, the 
decrees of the government were carried into partial effect only ; 
in others, the acts of emancipation were consummated. The 
last, of which any account has been given, took place on the 
10th of August, 1848, in Cayenne and French Guiana. And 
it contains a testimony, not only to the extent to which the 
spirit of liberty is tsow spread, but to the safety of immediate, 
unconditional emancipation. Here also the most serious appre- 
hensions existed, lest when the proclamation of freedom should 
be made, there should be tumult and bloodshed. The inhabi- 
tants for many days previous went armed ; but on that day, 
says an eye-witness, " little by little, confidence was re-estab- 
lished ; and the thronging of the inhabitants through the streets 
commenced ; the Te Deuni was sung at the church, after 
which more than a thousand negroes marched to the front of 
the Governor's house to thank him for the proclamation made 
by him giving tlicm their freedom ; and it was truly admirable 
to us who so little expected it, to see these poor people, who 
immediately after repaired to the church, and then quietly 
kneeling down and lifting up their hands to heaven thanked 
God for giving them their liberty." 

Thus have we testimony from almost every portion of 



68 

Christendom ; and we think that we are fnlly sustained in the 
position, that the enhghtened sentiment of the day is diamet- 
rically opposed to the extension and continnance of slavery ; 
and that he who upholds and defends the system, does it in 
opposition to the distinctly avowed and settled convictions 
of the Christian world. 



But we are well aware, that, in the judgment of many, there 
is in the fundamental laws of our government, a very formida- 
ble, if not insurmountable obstacle in the way of the abolition 
of American slavery. Your Committee have, therefore, devoted 
some attention to this part of the subject before them, and 
would be glad, if the limits of their Report would allow a more 
detailed historical view of it. 

The Government of Great Britain established slavery in this 
country ; and up to the period of our Revolution, the authority 
of that government was its only legal sanction among us. The 
Declaration of Independence subverted the authority of that 
government in all the colonies consenting to or adopting it ; but 
did not subvert and annul all the laws which had been estab- 
lished in the colonies under that authority. It did, however, 
affirm and indicate principles, both in regard to man and his 
rights, and to government, its duty and obligations, utterly in- 
consistent with slavery and the maintenance and execution of 
all the laws in relation to it. This inconsistency was felt and 
acknowledged by many ; and during the Revolutionary strug- 
gle the Declaration and its principles had -a manifest influence 
upon the public mind, and in some cases upon legal action iti 
regard to slavery. 

Dr. Belknap, in his accoinit of the decrease of slavery in 
Massachusetts,* says : " At the beginning of our controversy 
with Great Britain, several persons, who before had entertained 
sentiments opposed to the slavery of the blacks, did then take 
occasion publicly to remonstrate against the inconsistency of 
contending for our own liberty, and at the same time depriving 
other people of theirs." It was under the efiect produced by 
the Declaration of Independence, and the influence of the pub- 
lic opinion of which it was in part both the source and the ex- 
pression, that juries in Massachusetts in several cases rendered 
verdicts in favor of slaves, previous to the adoption of the con- 
stitution of 1780, which constitution by the decision of the 

* Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. lY. p. 201. 



69 

supreme court in 1783, was interpreted as establishing upon 
broad and general principles the liberties of the negroes. 

There are misapprehensions and misrepresentations of the 
constitution, on the subject of slavery, which seem to have 
originated in sheer ignorance of the history of our Federal Gov- 
ernment. Many intelligent men are probably unacepiainted 
with the real origin and import of the enumeration of '•' ihreo.- 
ffths of all other persojis," beside " free persons, including 
those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding In- 
dians not taxed." 

In the report of the committee of the Continental Congress, 
appointed to draft articles of confederation, it was proposed, 
" that all charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be 
incurred for the common defence or the general welfare, shall 
be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied 
by the several colonies, in proportion to the number of inhabi- 
tants of every age, sex and quality, except Indians not paying 
taxes in each colony." The report was submitted July 12, 
1776. Some days afterwards, while under discussion in com- 
mittee of the whole house, Mr. Chase, of Maryland, endeavor- 
ed to obviate some objections, by an amendment, " that the 
quotas should be paid, not by the number of the inhabitants of 
every condition, but by that of ' the white inhabitants.' " The 
amendment suggested and advocated by Mr. Chase, was strenu- 
ously resisted by John Adams and others ; mainly because, as 
was contended, inhabitants were to be taken as an index of 
property, and, therefore, if taxes should be apportioned accord- 
ing to the number of white inhabitants, the smallest share of 
the burden would fall upon those States in which were the 
greatest number of slaves. And it was well understood, that 
the Southern States were much richer than the Northern. 

The comparative value of free and slave labor very mate- 
rially affected the views of the different speakers, — as may be 
seen by an examination of the "Madison Papers." As a com- 
promise, Mr. Harrison, of Virginia, proposed that two slaves 
should be counted as one free man; — it being doubtful in his 
opinion, if two slaves did any more work, and thus, as produ- 
cers of wealth, could justly be reckoned as anymore than equal 
to one free man. 

Both the amendment and the proposition of the committee 
were rejected. It was agreed to apportion the taxes, according 
to the valuation of houses and lands. But such valuation 
having afterwards been found impracticable, the taxes were 
assessed according to the estimated population of the different 
States respectively. 

It is of much importance here to notice, that, in the debate 
upon the articles of confederation, the subject of slavery was 
7* 



70 

introduced, not upon any question of natural or moral right, but 
upon a question of finance, or of political economy. Our 
Southern brethren, and ourselves also, now look at the subject 
from a very different position from that in which it was viewed 
by the members of the Continental Congress in 1776, or by 
the framers of the constitution, in 1787. 

In 1783, the Continental Congress made an attempt to revive 
the national credit. A committee reported, "that the quotas of 
the several States should be in proportion to the mmiber of in- 
habitants of every age, sex and condition, provided that in such 
enumeration no persons shall be included who are bound to ser- 
vitude for life, according to the laws of the State to which they 

belong, other than such as may he between the ages of 

years." Insuperable objections were urged against any appor- 
tionment, which contemplated the age of persons. The pro- 
portion of absolute numbers was finally agreed to, — slaves 
being rated as five to three. One member proposed the ratio 
of four to three ; another of four to one. Some were in favor 
of two to one, or of three to one. The ratio of five to three 
was, in Mr. Madison's view, as it would seem, a proof of liber- 
ality and magnanimity on the part of those immediately inter- 
ested in the avails of slave-labor. 

In the legislation of 1776 and 1783, we doubtless have the 
natural history and the true import of the provision of the 
second section of the first article of the constitution, which 
determines the apportionment of representatives and direct 
taxes. The provision was adopted, because members of the 
Convention, who were " principled against slavery," yet were 
unwilling to seem to do injustice to the slave-holding States, 
by an apportionment of direct taxes, without an equivalent 
representation. Throughout the discussions of the Convention 
in 1787, as well as those of the Continental Congress, the 
Northern and Southern States appear in no such attitude, upon 
the subject of slavery, as would now be presented, in the exist- 
ing state of moral and political opinions. The most decided 
convictions against the right and the policy of slave-holding 
were freely expressed by members of the Convention, from the 
south as well as the north of the Potomac. And a speech of 
Gouverneur Morris, of Pennsylvania, would satisfy the most 
uncompromising and unsparing antagonist of the slave-holding 
system, among all who now desire its speedy and total extirpa- 
tion. " He never would concur in upholding domestic slavery. 
It was a nefarious institution. It was the curse of Heaven on 
the States where it prevailed." * 

The compromise, therefore, by which the enumeration of the 

* Madison Papers, pp. 1263-5. 



71 

" three-fifths " prevailed, was not such as is now generally 
maintained by the representatives of the slave-holding States. 
It was primarily, if not strictly, financial. It may be true that 
some of those States would not have been willing to come itito 
the Union, unless some such indulgence towards the " ])eculiar 
institution " had been granted. But the actual feeling of other 
members, who, in the circumstances, gave consent, was no 
doubt the same or similar to that of Mr. Williamson, of North 
Carolina, who, in the warm debate on the slave-trade, for 
the continuance of which South Carolina and Georgia were so 
importunate, said, " that both in opinion and practice he was 
against slavery, but thought it more in favor of humanity, from 
a view of all circumstances, to let in South Carolina and 
Georgia on those terms, [viz., that the slave-trade should not 
be prohibited previous to 180S,] than to exclude them from the 
Union."* And Mr. Madison, in opposing the continuance of 
the slave-trade beyond the year ISOO, said, " twenty years will 
produce all the mischief that can be apprehended from the 
liberty to import slaves. So long a term will be more dishon- 
orable to the American character, than to say nothing about it 
in the constitution." f We are mortified to say, that, if every 
member of the Eastern States had then joined with Mr. Madi- 
son, and his noble associates, the slave-trade would not have 
continued, as it did, until 1808. Principle yielded to " the 
mammon of unrighteousness." 

But upon the naked question, whether men were to he ac- 
knoioledged as property, although taxed as such in the condi- 
tion of slaves, it would not have been possible to have obtained 
a major vote in the Convention of 1787. And it is an utterly 
false averment, as we contend, that the constitution was un- 
derstood by the framers of it, to be a recognition of slavery, as 
a system or institution. If the Southern States, instead of being 
the richest, had been the poorest, we are fully warranted to 
say, that the world would never have heard of the enumeration 
of " three-fifths ; " and no such indelible stain would have ever 
marred the national glory of the charter of our Federal Union. 

And now, as in the result the Government of the Union has 
been sustained without such taxation as was acknowledged to 
be the ground of the rule of representation, with what pro- 
priety do statesmen and others of the South so determinedly 
maintain the well-known doctrine of Southern rights ? But 
we cannot pursue this and some other inquiries, which, how- 
ever, are of great practical interest, in the present relations of 
the free and the slave-holding States. 

That by the majority of the Convention which framed the 

* Madison Papers, p. 1428. t Do. p. 1427. 



72 

constitution of the United States, slavery was deemed a tem- 
porary institution, is evident from the tone of much of the 
discussion had at the time, both within and without that body; 
and might be inferred from the single circumstance, that the 
express mention of it, by name, is so carefully avoided in that 
instrument, that the words which refer to it would be unintel- 
ligible, if the fact or the existence of slavery did not interpret 
them. 

The aninuis of the framers of the constitution might also be 
inferred from the fact, that its adoption was immediately follow- 
ed by the establishment of societies for the abolition of slavery 
in. Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina, in which societies 
many of those very statesmen, who had been members of the 
Convention, including Washington and Jefferson, were actively 
engaged. Up to the date of the constitution, the black popu- 
lation had failed to reproduce its own number, under the law of 
natural increase. It was suppo'sed, therefore, as has been al- 
ready suggested in this Report, that on the cessation of the 
slave-trade, the gradual extinction of the colored race within 
our borders would begin, and slavery would cease. This 
would have been the result, perhaps, had not the purchase of 
Louisiana and the extension of slave-territory opened a home 
market and acted as a bounty or premium on production. 

As such were the views and expectations of the framers of 
the constitution, it is not surprising that all which that instru- 
ment can be interpreted or made to contain, is the reluctant and 
half-latent acknowledgment of the existence of slavery, with 
provision for the civil estimate in respect to representation, and 
the treatment in respect to fugitives, of those who then hap- 
pened to be included under it, without indicating any purpose 
or possibility of its extension, but implying the contrary ; and 
without making any provision, or conferring any power, by 
which it could be lawfully extended, or by which the rights 
(now so called) which it confers, could be legitimated in any 
State where it did not then exist, or upon any territory that 
might thereafter be added to the Union. This, as we believe, 
it can be demonstrated, is the extent of the connection between 
the Constitution of the United States and Slavery. And in 
what we have now to say, in commenting more particularfy 
upon the language of the constitution, we must omit many 
historical and other citations, which a full view of this part of 
the subject would very urgently require us to introduce. 

That slavery described by the periphrasis of ^'persons held 
to service,''^ is recognized by the constitution, as existing in 
some of the States of the Union, will of course not be denied; 
and it must be admitted also, that so far as it is recognized by 
that instrument, and until it shall in some legal manner be abol- 



73 

ished, it is the duty of the judiciary- to sustain the provisions 
of the constitution in respect to it. In interpreting these pro- 
visions, we should always bear in mind the circumstances un- 
der which they were adopted. Most important also it is, that 
we bear in mind the principle, that slavery, from its yery nature 
and character, is a wrong in itself, having no foundation in 
natural or moral right ; and whoever avers that it has a legal 
existence within any particular territory or jurisdiction, must 
prove that it exists by clear and distinct provision of law. 
This principle is recognized by eminent English jurists, who, 
when they have had occasion to speak of slavery, uniformly 
say, — "It is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being intro- 
duced on any reasons, moral or political, but only provisions of 
law ; and it is so odious, that nothing can be sutfered to support 
it, but positive law." 

American jurists have recognized the same principle. In 
pronouncing a judgment of the supreme court, chief justice 
IMarshall, speaking of the slave trade, uses this language — 
'• That it is contrary to the law of nature will scarcely be denied. 
That every man has a natural right to the fruits of his own 
labor is generally admitted, and that no other person can right- 
fully deprive him of those fruits and appropriate them against 
his will, seems to be the necessary result of the admission." 
These views and principles have received the sanction of the 
supreme court of Massachusetts, and will be sustained by 
every intelligent legal tribunal ; and on this ground it may be 
maintained, that no intendment in favor of slavery can be made 
out from the constitution, except such as is the necessary result 
of express provision. In reference to right, justice, and equity, 
the construction applied to any instrument or law, is liberal and 
favorable, so as thereby, if practicable, to uphold the right. 
When any instrument or law is designed to uphold or accom- 
plish a purpose not in conformity with natural right, the con- 
struction adopted is strict and rigid, so as thereby to limit and 
restrain the evil which might otherwise exist. Applying this 
just principle of construction to the constitution of the United 
States, in its relations to slavery, we say that it was no part of 
the intention of that instrument to create or establish the insti- 
tution of slavery, or to enlarge its territory, or to give to Con- 
gress any power or right to establish it, or to recognize or per- 
mit its existence in any Slate or Territory of the Union, where 
it did not exist at the time the constitution was framed and 
adopted. At that time the institution had a legal existence 
within certain States; this limited existence, as a matter of 
compromise, was permitted to continue. Without and beyond 
these States, slavery has and can have no legal existence under 
the constitution. The provisions of that instrument and its 



> 74 

whole spirit and principles are prohibitory as regards slavery 
over all other soil that has since, is now, or may become, a por- 
tion of the Union. For that instrument, as is asserted in its 
first clause, was formed, among other things, to establish justice 
and secure the blessings of liberty to its framers and their pos- 
terity. Slavery most certainly is not essential to justice or the 
blessings of liberty. It is in direct conflict and opposition to these 
purposes. This being the spirit and purpose of the constitution, 
no intendment in support of slavery can be drawn from it, but 
such as is upheld by the most strict and rigid interpretation of 
the express provisions by which it is to a certain extent recog- 
nized. These provisions are but two in number. The first, 
and in some respects the most important one, is in these words, 
" The migration or importation of such persons as any of the 
States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be 
prohibited by Congress prior to the year one thousand eight 
hundred and eight." This provision is an express limitation of 
the right to import and consequently to hold staves, in language 
which admits of only one construction. This right was there- 
by restrained to the States then existing, and of these States it 
was to be exercised only by those in which at that time, slave- 
ry had a legal existence. No broader construction can be put 
upon this provision. The second provision is thus expressed. 
"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the 
laws thereof, escaping into another, shall be discharged of such 
service, but shall be delivered up to the party to whom such 
service is due." 

This second provision was not designed to extend or enlarge 
the first — but only to uphold it in the limited manner, in which 
it was intended to be interpreted, and goes to prove that that 
limited interpretation is correct. By the universal principles of 
law, as known to communities in which slavery has no exist- 
ence — whenever a slave puts his foot upon the territory of such 
community, he becomes free. • The second provision was 
adopted to obviate the eftect of this principle ; because without 
it a slave escaping from a slave-holding State into a non-slave- 
holding one, would be regarded as free, notwithstanding the 
right secured to his owner under the first provision ; and the 
fact that it was deemed necessary to insert this second provi- 
sion, shows that the first was understood and was to be inter- 
preted in the limited maimer already noticed. 

An opinion different from the position stated above, is held 
by some, who, however they may express themselves, rely for 
support to their opinion upon that provision of the constitution, 
which says that, " citizens of each State shall be entitled to all 
the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States." 
But this provision was clearly not intended to enlarge the right 



75 

• 

of slavery, as recognized to a limited extent in the two provi- 
sions upon that snbject aheady referred to. To infer from it a 
right in a citizen of a slave-holding State to become a citizen 
of a non-slave-holding State, carrying his slaves with him and 
exercising over them therein the rights and power which he 
had been accnstomed to exercise in the State from which he 
removed, is a snpposition so monstronsly absurd, that it could 
never be for a moment entertained, save by one in whom the 
strong influence of passion and self-interest had blinded the 
judgment. Let the principle involved in this inference be car- 
ried out and applied to all other matters as well as to slavery, 
and every law of every State may be in turn modified or sub- 
verted by it, and inextricable confusion introduced into the ad- 
ministration of justice — or what would then be the administra- 
tion of injustice. 

The law of Massachusetts punishes murder with death. 
The law of Michigan spares life, but condemns to perpetual 
imprisonment for the same crime. To infer that because the 
constitution says, "citizens of each State shall be entitled to 
all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several 
States," therefore a citizen of Michigan can come to Massachu- 
setts, either on a visit or for permanent residence, and commit- 
ting murder, may claim to be exempt from the death penalty, 
and subject only to imprisonment for life, on the ground that 
this was his privilege and immunity under the laws in the 
State of Michigan, would not be more absurd than to infer from 
the same provision of the constitution that a citizen of Carolina 
may come to reside in Massachusetts and claim to exercise and 
enjoy in the latter the privileges and immunities which were 
guarantied to him as a citizen slave-holder in the former State. 
Both inferences, and all such inferences, are unwarrantable 
and absurd. 

The clause of the constitution under consideration, was 
simply intended to prevent the several States from prohibiting 
the free ingress and egress of citizens of one State into and 
from another. Under it any citizen of the United States has a 
right to pass from Maine to Texas, and from Massachusetts to 
Oregon or California, unmolested and unquestioned, and to fix 
his residence in any State that he chooses; but in passing from 
one to another State, he does not carry w.th him the laws of 
the State from which he passes, but becomes subject immedi- 
ately to the law of the State within which he may chance to 
be. 

Those who uphold slavery, have never urged or pretended 
that a citizen of a State in which slavery existed at the time of 
the adoption of the constitution, could carry and hold his slaves 
as such, into a State in which at that time slavery had no legal 



76 

existence. They have admitted, tacitly at least, that, in this 
respect, slavery so far as recognized was territorially restricted 
by the constitntion, and that thus far the strict construction of 
that instrument in the matter of slavery was correct. 

They have contended, however, that new territory, acquired 
by conquest, by treaty or purchase, belongs to the several 
States in their collective capacity — and therefore a slave-holder 
has a right to occupy such new territory with his slaves. 

Admit the premises of the argument, yet the conclusion does 
not follow. The slave-holder going to new territory, must 
take the law of the territory as he finds it. He does not and 
cannot carry there the law of the State from which he goes. 
But it is answered, that Congress may make rules and regula- 
tions for such territory, and therefore may sanction the exist- 
ence of slavery in it, and ought to do it, in order that the citi- 
zens of all the States, slave-holding and non-slave-holding, may 
have equal privileges and inducements to settle upon it. 

In reply to lliis argument and reasoning, we say that the 
question is not what Congress ought to do, nor what it would 
be wise or expedient or politic for it to do, but simply what has 
it the power to do? We by no means admit that it would be 
wise, expedient or just in Congress to recognize, permit or es- 
tablish slavery in any new territory, under any circumstances. 
We strenuously maintain the contrary. But it is not necessary 
to discuss this point, because Congress, even if it thought it wise 
or expedient, has not the power. It is intrusted undoubtedly 
with power to make laws and regulations for the new territo- 
ries of the Union ; but it cannot establish over any territory, new 
or old, any rules or regulations inconsistent with the spirit, pur- 
pose and principles of the constilution^ or in violation of or op- 
position to the clear meaning and intent of its express provi- 
sions. All power in the United States Government, executive, 
legislative and judicial, is subservient to this instrument, the 
constitution, which is the Magna Charta of the American 
Republic. The great object of this charter, as already stated, 
was and is to "establish justice and secure the blessings of 
liberty to its framers and their posterity." As an inducement 
to the slave-holding States existing at its origin to assent 
thereto, they were permitted to retain their slaves within their 
own territory and to increase them by importation till 1808 — 
and in the one case the restriction as to territory, is as clear and 
express as in the other the restriction as to time; in neither 
case had Congress any discretionary right or power given it. 
The obligation of Congress to stop the slave-trade at and after 
1808, its utter incompetency, without trampling upon the con- 
stitution, to permit or authorize by law the continuance of that 
traffic after that period, is not more absolute and manifest than 



77 

its obligation to restrain slavery to the limits within which it 
was held at the adoption of the constitution, and its incompe- 
tency to extend it by law beyond those limits. The provision 
of the constitution, which directly, or by implication, gives to 
the government of the United States power to extend slavery, 
cannot be pointed out ; and any treaty, any purchase, any act 
of Congress, by and through which slavery has been thus 
extended, must be regarded as unconstitutional — a violation of 
the express provision, and of the spirit, purpose and intent of 
the constitution — a violation and infringement not only of the 
claims of humanity, but of that justice which it is the object 
of the constitution to promote, and of those blessings of liberty 
which it was intended to secure, perpetuate and diffuse. 

The very statement of all the constitutional argument which 
can be made out for an opposite conclusion, shows its fallacy 
and weakness. From the proposition, or premise, "that slavery 
is permitted by the constitution to exist, or is recognized as 
existing within certain territory," the conclusion sought to be 
deduced is, — " therefore Congress, the law-making power, may 
establish slavery within territory where it is not permitted to 
exist, or recognized as existing, by that instrument." The 
conclusion is a perfect non sequitur. No such power is ex- 
pressly conferred by that instrument. And the very principles 
upon which, and the great purposes for which, it is declared to 
have been framed and adopted, make it impossible that any 
such power can be implied or was intended to be implied. 

It has been urged, that slavery may be established in the ter- 
ritories by the action of their inhabitants. These have a right, 
it is said, to determine whether or not slavery shall be per- 
mitted to exist within their borders, and if so disposed may 
decide that it shall. It requires no great penetration to detect 
the fallacy of this reasoning. The territories belonging to the 
United States, are controlled, directly or indirectly, by the 
legislation of Congress ; but the legislation of Congress over 
the territories, as well as all its other legislation, is controlled 
and restricted by the constitution of the United States. The 
people of a territory, the moment said territory is annexed, 
come under the control of the United States, and are subject to 
the constitution of the United States. They can pass no acts, 
make no laws, and Congress can approve none that they make, 
but such as are in harmony with the provisions and principles 
of the constitution ; and these provisions and principles forbid 
the creation, the establishment of slavery in all territory where 
it did not exist, when the constitution was adopted. When- 
ever it is proposed to admit a new territory into the Union as a 
State, its constitution must be approved by Congress, which 
body cannot approve or permit any thing therein which con- 
8 



78 

flicts with the fundamental principles and purpose of the con- 
stitution of the United States — which are declared to be, the 
promotion of justice and the security and perpetuation of the 
blessings of liberty ; — and slavery, which is the promotion of 
injustice and the loss of liberty to thousands, does conflict 
with them. Congress, therefore, in obedience to the letter and 
spirit of the constitution, is as much bound to forbid and pre- 
vent the admission into the Union of a slave-holding State, as 
of a State establishing for its internal, domestic government, a 
monarchical form, with an hereditary king and nobles. 

So in regard to the treaty-making power, it is said that trea- 
ties are the supreme law of the land, and, therefore, when 
territory is acquired by treaty, in which slavery exists, such 
treaty may rightfully stipulate that slavery shall be continued. 
This conclusion has no foundation. Treaties, rightfully made, 
are undoubtedly the supreme law of the land ; but the ques- 
tion whether they are rightfully made, is a question to be de- 
termined by the constitution ; and no treaty which infringes 
that, can be regarded as the law of this country. Congress has 
no power to make a treaty, any of the provisions of which are 
in violation of the fundamental principles and purpose of the 
constitution. Congress has no more power to acquire territory 
by treaty, in which treaty it is stipulated that a certain number 
and class of inhabitants of that territory and their posterity, 
shall be held as slaves, than it has to acquire territory by treaty, 
in which treaty it is stipulated, that all the inhabitants of all 
classes in that territory shall be held as slaves. And its ap- 
proval of these treaties, in the one case or the other, would not 
be more wrong and inhuman, than it would, in both cases, be 
unconstitutional. It cannot be made out from the constitution, 
that Congress has the power, either direct or implied, to extend 
slavery. If Congress has not the power to extend, it must and 
ought to restrain it. This conclusion necessarily follows ; be- 
cause the very provisions which show that Congress has not 
the power to extend slavery, prove that in adhering to and 
maintaining these provisions, it must restrain it. It is intended 
by the constitution to be restrained to the territory within 
which it was included at the adoption of the constitution ; and 
all extension of it beyond those limits has been made, not by 
an adherence to the compromises (as they are called) and pur- 
poses of the constitution, but in disregard and violation of 
them. 

The connection between slavery and the constitution of the 
United States, involves one other point of interest, viz., the 
District of Columbia. Congress having exclusive legislation 
over this District, it is contended, on the one hand, that it may 
and ought to abolish slavery ; and, on the other, that it cannot 



7? 

rightfully, and therefore ought not to do this. Undoubtedly 
there are nice and delicate points, both of equity and constitu- 
tional law, involved in this matter, which we have not time or 
ability to discuss. One or two points, however, would seem to 
be very clear. 

If Congress has exclusive legislation over the District, it has 
exclusive control of this matter of slavery in the District, and 
can do three things. 

1. It can prohibit the introduction of slaves into the District 
from other States, and their sale in the District, to be trans- 
ferred into other States ; and thus greatly diminish the evil of 
the institution, and entirely prevent the District from being 
and continuing the great slave mart of the Union. 

2. It can abolish slavery immediately, and forever ; and if 
the act of abolition contained a provision to pay the masters 
the full value of their slaves, no advocate of slavery could 
complain that injustice was done to the masters. 

3. It can pass a law of prospective abolition — a law provid- 
ing that all persons within the District, on and after a certain 
specified time, shall be free, without providing any compensa- 
tion to the masters. Such a law could not, justly, be regarded 
as an infringement of the private right of property ; because, 
in this case, the supposed right of property is too remote and 
contingent to be made the foundation of public wrong. It 
would be in accordance with the legislation of several of the 
largest States which have abolished slavery. 

Till, then, some such laws are passed, and provision made 
for its extinc^tion, the Constitution, the Congress, and the 
WHOLE PEOPLE of the United States are responsible before the 
world, for the evil and the wrong, the shame and the disgrace 
of slavery in the District of Columbia, and in all the Territo- 
ries of the United States. 



We have incidentally referred above to the right of property 
in slaves, as it would be affected by emancipation. The dis- 
tinct statement of a few general principles — principles which 
have indeed been implied throughout all this discussion — may 
serve, perhaps, to strengthen our position. 

1. One man has no natural right of property in another. 
This proposition is so nearly self-evident, that no argument can 
be necessary in support of it, and no illustration render it 
clearer. To assume the existence of such a right is, in effect, 



80 

to deny that mankind are of one nature, and that God " hath 
made of one blood all nations of men," — to sanction wars of 
classes and races upon one another for their mutual subjugation, 
— to justify a state of enmity between neighbors, — to repudiate 
the great Christian law of "doing unto others as we would 
that they should do unto us," — to maintain the propriety of 
robbery and violence, and" thus to subvert the fundamental prin- 
ciples of morality as declared in the gospel of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ. 

2. As one man has no natural right of property in another, 
neither can he acquire that righl, so that the possession shall be 
unqualified and absolute, or a perfect ownership. The only 
mode in which he may acquire it at all, except in the case of 
punishment for crime, is by purchase or gift from the real own- 
er — as when one man sells or surrenders to another his own 
lime, liberty, skill and strength. But " the things of a man " 
which he may not justly sell or relinquish, cannot justly be 
bought or taken from him. Thus the rights of conscience, the 
responsibilities of a soul made in the image of God, freedom to 
do right and to refuse to do wrong, the capacity of improve- 
ment, the obligations of religion, are not disposable possessions. 
He who wrests them from another, as well as he who volunta- 
rily resigns them, violates the laws of the kingdom of heaven. 
No man may sell them or in any way part with them ; no man 
may buy them or in any way take them from another. They 
are inalienable. Now, if slavery were the result of a contract, 
that fact would relieve it, in some degree, of its enormity ; but 
even then, the contract would be void ; inasmuch as it takes 
from the slave what no one has a right either to sell or to pur- 
chase, to give or to receive. But slavery, instead of being the 
result of a contract, has its origin in arbitrary power, and is 
maintained by the continued exercise of that power. 

3. The principles of natural right and justice are universal 
and immutable. They are modified by no circumstances 
which man can control, and subject to no exceptions which he 
may choose. They can be violated with impunity by no 
earthly power. They apply to men organized in society, act- 
ing through institutions and laws and acted upon by them, 
with the same force and to the same extent as to separate indi- 
viduals ; that which is contrary to those principles and forbid- 
den by them in the one case being equally contrary to them 
and forbidden by them in the other. It hence follows, that if 
one man has no natural right of property in another, the state, 
or body politic, has no such right ; and, therefore, that the as- 
sumption of that right in the form of constitutions and laws by 
which men are taken aild declared to be property, is an unright- 
eous usurpation. 



m 

4. But as no society is organized upon pure principles of 
Right and Justice, and the wisest human legislation is but an 
approximation, more or less distant, to Perfect Law, a question 
arises as to the extent to which allegiance is due to the state 
when its requirements, as in the case of laws enforcing slavery, 
are manifestly founded in injustice. We answer this question, 
without scruple, by saying, that it is the duty of those who, by 
their j)osition, are subject to such requirements, to submit to 
them only as far as is necessary for the integrity and peace of 
the state. As overt resistance would be insurrectionary and 
seditious, so patient and uncomplaining acquiescence would be 
inconsistent with the law of love to man, and with the spirit of 
that religion which inculcates " deliverance to the captives," 
and- whose office it is to " break every yoke " but that which 
itself imposes. 

It should be borne in mind, in this connection, that the Idea 
of a state is one thing and the Fact another. Sagacious, 
thoughtful, and good men have always a vision of an order of 
society more or less in advance of that in which they live. 
Indeed, that vision is common to man. Every where the Idea 
of society is above the Reality, and is prophetic of change and 
improvement. Now, it is clearly incumbent on all, while sub- 
mitting, by a moral necessity, and to the extent of that neces- 
sity, to imperfect institutions and unjust and oppressive laws, to 
use their utmost exertions to improve those institutions and 
change those laws ; endeavoring to make the Fact correspond to 
the Idea of a state, to bring its spirit and life into harmony with 
the abstract principles of Right and Justice. 

It is, therefore, the duty of the people of the United States 
to submit to the laws of the land in their recognition and sup- 
port of slavery, so far and only so far as the integrity and peace 
of the state require such submission ; while it is demanded of 
them by all the principles of justice and humanity, and by 
every attribute of God, to use all peaceful means in their power 
to annul those laws, and thus to redeem their fellow-men in 
bondage from that condition of degradation and cruelty in 
which they are held as property, and bought and sold like 
brutes. 

We do not deny, but acknowledge the legal right of property 
in slaves. We admit that " that is property " for the time 
being "which the law declares to be property." We woi>ld 
not counsel interference with the slave-holders in their exercise 
of this right as long as it exists. But we assert that all laws 
sanctioning or upholding slavery and giving to man property in 
man, are contrary to justice and humanity and in direct viola- 
tion of the precepts of Christianity ; and that, on this account, 
it is the duty of all good citizens in all parts of the country^ 
8* 



82 

and especially of the professed disciples of Christ, to demand 
their immediate abrogation. We cannot doubt that this is the 
sentiment of a large majority of the people of the United States, 
nor that it is daily spreading, and acquiring intensity and 
strength ; nor, still further, that it is destined, at no remote pe- 
riod, to render slavery as universally odious as it is manifestly 
unjust. If we are not to be disappointed in this expectation, 
and if loss of property ensues from its fulfilment to those whose 
accumulations are in the bones and sinews and blood of their 
fellow-men, they will suffer only that which is incident to all 
property held under laws that are liable to be changed at the 
discretion of the sovereign power ; and they will have no more 
claim to indemnity on the score of justice, than that which may 
be urged in behalf of those who, from a like cause, may suffer 
depreciation or total loss of any other species of property. 

Yet, if it should be made to appear that the abolition of 
slavery would be followed by great loss and general distress in 
that part of the country where the institution is established, the 
principles of the gospel would demand that the other and 
stronger parts should share a burden thus created, and imposed 
by regard to the common good and in obedience to the dictates 
of humanity and religion ; nor can it for a moment be question- 
ed that the people of the free States would cheerfully and with 
large liberality cooperate with their brethren of the slave States 
in remedying the inconveniences and alleviating the pecuniary 
evils which might be the temporary result of emancipation. 

But while avowing this opinion we do not hesitate to declare 
our belief, that, instead of pecuniary loss and other disadvan- 
tages, the abolition of slavery would be followed by an increase 
of wealth, thrift, general intelligence, and comfort, throughout 
the slave States. The path of justice and mercy is not a way 
of darkness, but " like the shining light, that shineth more and 
more unto the perfect day." Sterility, want, anarchy and crime 
have never been the consequences, amongst any people, of loy- 
alty to God and supreme devotion to the principles of righteous- 
ness ; on the contrary, fealty to God and respect for the rights 
of his children, — especially of the weak, ignorant, and defence- 
less, — surely bring with them, both by the general laws of the 
world and the special dispensations of heaven, the best bless- 
ings that fall to the lot of man in the social state. 

' We do not here go into the question of the relations which 
will subsist between masters and slaves after emancipation 
takes place, but content ourselves Avith observing, that there is 
wisdom enough in the country to devise, and power enough to 
execute, measures for the equal advantage of both ; and that, — 
whether by apprenticeship, by voluntary colonization, or by 
labor for wages, we do not presume to determine the precise 



83 

mode — in our judgment, the slaves, when set free, will be less 
burdensome, and a cause of less perplexity and trouble to the 
white inhabitants of the slave-holding States, than they are, 
while, as at present, in a condition of bondage. It is not, how- 
ever, on any economical grounds that we urge emancijiation. 
We cannot fail to take a higher and broader view of the sub- 
ject. We rest our demand on the inviolable laws of Justice, 
on the eternal principles of Humanity, on the irreversible dic- 
tates of Religion in the soul, and on the Revelation by Jesus 
Christ of the perfect will of God. 



In conclusion of this Report, it only remains to present some 
of those motives and considerations which should induce all 
the citizens of this country to seek the extinction of slavery 
within its borders. 

These considerations must have suggested themselves, indeed, 
at every stage of the preceding discussion. It is impossible to 
sketch the real features of the slave-system, without perceiving 
the impregnable strength of the argument against it. Slavery is 
its own impeachment ; its own condemnation. As the legal idea 
of the system is to make man property, so its inevitable result — 
however its inherent wrongs may be mitigated by the compassion 
of individual masters — is to crush whatever is noblest in human- 
ity beneath the weight of its chain. Mind must be fettered, as 
well as the limbs ; for the first real waking of intellect will be 
the signal of insurrection. And if affection, conscience, the 
•soul itself still live in the breast of the bondman, it is because 
the hand of man cannot extinguish the flame which God en- 
kindled, and not because there is any mercy in the nature of 
slavery. It is a cruel taunt to speak of the provision for the 
physical comfort of the slave, which may be made — even 
though he never knew hunger or nakedness, and never bled 
beneath the lash — as a real mitigation of this towering wrong. 
It is a worse cruelty to speak of his apparent happiness as any 
alleviation, when humanity must be torn out of his being to 
make him happy amidst his bonds ; — nay, not happy — for we 
will not profanely use a word which is sometimes applied to 
thoughts of divine joy — but to make him wear the sad show 
of happiness. No argument, no appeal, can add one particle of 
force to this simple statement, could it be fully made. Every 
human heart would know by intuition, unless every manly 
feeling had perished, that the instincts of humanity and the 
spirit of Christ alike condemned it. As well might we attempt 



84 

to prove that the condition of the lost soul — once opened in the 
depths of its woe — was not the bliss of heaven. The real 
office of any appeal upon such a theme can only be to bring 
the public mind and heart into a condition to see the simple 
truth, — to take the film from our eyes, so that the light which 
is shining all around us may stream into our souls, — to present 
the question itself, separated from all evasions, stripped of all 
disguises, before the bar of conscience. 

We present no motives, no considerations, therefore, as the 
basis of our appeal, except those which belong to the domain 
of conscience. We should be false to our Master, if we did 
not place high above all other thoughts, those everlasting truths 
of God, by which individuals and nations must be judged. 
However men may regard such reasoning, we can recognize no 
other standard. The disastrous effects of slavery upon a na- 
tion's true prosperity, the curse that it brings upon labor, the 
idleness and improvidence that it engenders — which prove it 
to be equally a mistake and a crime — we do not present in any 
prominence. These results — which, considered entirely apart 
from its sad effects upon character, the reeking sensualities it 
produces — blight the territories long defiled by its presence, as 
the drought withers every green thing in nature ; — these results 
are impertinent in this higher discussion. We admire that Prov- 
idence which always unites true prosperity with obedience to 
God's everlasting law. We look with shuddering awe upon 
the sure connection between sin and suffering ; sometimes 
making the physical frame the slave of the intoxicating cup, 
for instance, the minister of a torture that is a fit image of hell ; 
giving, in some such example, an illustration of a law that 
runs through the whole universe of life. But the bright result 
in the one case, or the woe in the other, must not come into 
the scale, when we weigh the eternal obligation of Christian 
truth. Even if it could be true, under the government of God, 
that slavery might secure the blessings which come as a crowd 
of attending angels around the steps of freedom, and liberty 
produced the blight of slavery, we should regard it like the 
temptation of the crown of the whole earth to Jesus — a thought 
to be instantly rejected with unspeakable aversion, in this sol- 
emn estimate of right. 

We notice two or three particulars in harmony with this 
general position. It is imperatively demanded of the citizens 
of this country, to seek the extinction of slavery within its 
borders, with untiring earnestness, if they would preserve the 
very ideas which have made this nation what it is, as a living 
influence in its heart. Men do not often realize the greatness 
of the calamity, when they partially lose the ideas which have 
been their inspiration. No loss is so great as the loss of faith 



85 

in eternal principles. The life of genius sinks into weakness, 
if not wild passion ; the martyr loses his soul of sacrifice ; the 
disciple faints in his devotion, and turns away from his God, 
when faith grows dim. To lose the influence of these great 
ideas, is hke tearing the sun from his sphere. And the gloom 
which would then cover the world, would only be an image of 
this darkness and desolation in the soul. All the great things 
in the world have been the result of faith in those grand 
thoughts of freedom, of holiness, of right, that have inspired 
their votaries. And where these are not, the whole mind is 
stricken with idiocy and palsy. When these are gone, the 
abomination of desolation already stands in the holy place 
wherein thoughts and deeds have their birth, and the far-seeing 
mind then can only wait, with tears, the coming of that de- 
struction which shall not leave one stone upon another in the 
temple which was loved and reverenced. 

And this inspiring faith can only be preserved by constant 
watchfulness : it cannot live in the presence, the atmosphere 
of sin, — when silent over the enormity. Wherever slavery 
exists, there must be ceaseless war against its wrongs, or the 
sentiment of liberty will gradually die. This is the conclusion 
of, reason and the teaching of experience. Our national his- 
tory proves it. Liberty has doubtless been faithfully hallowed 
in the reverence of multitudes. Free principles will vindicate 
themselves, sooner or later, among this people. Yet the proofs 
are painfully clear, that something of that faith in the idea of 
liberty which made the Fathers great, has ceased to exist in 
these later generations. In the days when the constitution was 
formed, slavery was permitted to exist, for a little period, that 
it might prepare itself to die. Whoever studies the sentiment 
of that day, will see that men no more intended the perpetua- 
tion of human slavery in this republic, than again to place the 
yoke which they had broken upon their own necks. Mark the 
contrast. One of the first acts of national legislation then, 
was to prohibit slavery in all that territory which had not been 
formed into States. In a later time, we admit States that pro- 
hibit the abolition of slavery forever. Then, all the territories 
which belonged to the country were declared to be free. In a 
later age, we receive new regions, far wider than mighty em- 
pires, in which we sanction human bondage, or do what differs 
only in form from its direct establishment. Then, slavery, as 
upon its bended knees, pleaded for a brief delay in the execu- 
tion of the sentence of death which seemed to be issued against 
it in the fundamental principles of the republic, and the living 
spirit of the nation. In a later generation, slavery has some- 
times assumed the dominion, so that liberty herself has been 
dumb in its presence. We have nothing to do with parties, in 



86 

such statements as these. We only present the simple facts. 
Is it only a dream, then, to suppose that the very ideas which 
made us a people might be slowly consumed out of the nation's 
heart by this canker of slavery ? Is it a vain thought of alarm 
that we are uttering, or is it a solemn warning of one law 
which is over men and nations — whose proofs are in all ages, 
and in our own history, too, when we ask for a renewed and 
perpetual faithfulness to the principle of freedom, — a faithful- 
ness that admits no compromise with slavery, — if we would 
preserve ourselves or this people from a deep degeneracy. 

Another consideration is directly suggested here, why the 
citizens of this nation should seek the extinction of slavery. 
A merely silent acquiescence in its claims to exist, — much 
more their recognition, — in one word, any thing less than an 
untiring Christian opposition, deadens the moral sense, and 
tends to abrogate the law of right and justice in the heart of 
the whole people. Scarcely any word is so popular as com- 
promise, even in the heart of Christendom. And there is one 
sphere of action, in which it may have a rightful sway, where 
all must give it homage. In the clashings of outward inter- 
ests, in most of the strifes of individuals and nations, it is but 
another name for the sweet spirit of peace, — alike Christian, in 
its nature and in its manifestations. But when we enter the 
domain of moral truth, it should be a banished word ; shunned 
there as much as it is welcomed everywhere beside. Conscience 
never compromises, except when it sins. Jesus, amidst all his 
gentleness, never looks with his full approval, while one thing 
is lacking. It is a spiritual law, that an individual soul can 
never retain one admitted wrong, without serious injury to 
the whole moral nature. So it is with a state. No moral 
influence can be mor# disastrous than the incorporation of a 
great injustice in the institution of a nation ; so that men, by 
their allegiance to government, seem to be constrained to de- 
fend the sin, — and obedience to the law of man requires diso- 
bedience to the law of God, — and acts of simple righteousness 
become acts of treason. A state which throws the sanction of 
law over injustice, so far as that wrong is concerned, diff'uses 
a universal contagion which is more fearful, we might better 
say, perhaps, more to be feared than the pestilence. We state 
a point that many may scarcely regard ; but in that deadness 
to all living sensibility may be found one great proof of its 
truth. We could scarcely present the special illustrations of 
the evil which we deplore, without seeming to enter into par- 
tisan discussions. Yet crowds of illustrations must occur to all 
who have carefully observed the history, the legislation, the 
political movements of the nation. Who can estimate the 
number of those whose sense of justice, and whose allegiance 



a9 

to truth have been corrupted by the compromise of pure princi- 
ples, of the law of God, before the claims of the slave-system ? 
At times, public righteousness almost seems as a moral impos- 
sibility, while this mighty temptation to integrity remains. 
There is no safeguard for the purity of the moral sense of this 
people, except in a perpetual labor for the overthrow of this 
great institution of human bondage. We must vindicate the 
truth, that considerations of right are higher than those of expe- 
diency in the government of states, as well as in the life of 
single souls, — that where justice is brought into question, com- 
promise must only be injustice, under another and a tempting 
name. 

These. are considerations which apply to men in all sections 
of the country, to a greater or less degree. Were we to attempt 
to show the sad results of slavery upon the moral condition of 
those who are owners of slaves, or who live in its immediate 
presence, the materials for the argument are most abundant. 
Some men may live in a land of slavery, and yet be free from 
its corruptions, as some may live amidst contagion and pesti- 
lence, unharmed. But we know the natural results of such 
exposures of body and of soul. If there is any meaning in the 
quick beating of the pulse at the name of liberty — any reason 
in the enthusiasm and sacrifice of her hosts of martyrs — if the 
creative idea of this people, the fundamental thought of its 
government was not a splendid cheat, — then slavery is a condi- 
tion involving degradations and wrongs, which should make 
men welcome death as a blessed angel of deliverance, in com- 
parison with its woe. We know enough of the thraldom of 
the soul in the breast of the slave — of the laceration of his 
purest affections, which must be where slavery is. We know 
enough of the cruelties and loathsome licentiousness which 
will be among many of the masters. We know what a system 
must be that which tempts men to raise human beings — their 
own flesh and blood — for the slave-market ; — and which can 
extinguish the love of their own children, until they will sell 
them like cattle. We know what a system must be, which 
renders it more dangerous to spread the Bible among these be- 
nighted three millions of our brothers and our sisters, than for 
the missionary to go into the thick night of heathenism with 
the light of life. 

We forbear from this whole topic, and from farther special 
suggestions. We base our whole appeal, we repeat, upon the 
instant protest of humanity itself against the idea of slavery, 
and the eternal opposition between it and the law of Christ. 
The first, every man feels ; and the last, however some may 
qualify their words, we believe that every Christian knows. 
This want of perception of the absolutely unchristian nature of 



the institution of Slavery is a terrible fiction, which results 
from perpetual compromisiugs of simple truth. Men begin by 
questioning if religion demands an immediate abolition of hu- 
man bondage, and then the passage is easy to its toleration, to 
silence over its wrongs, to admission of its right to live beneath 
Christian institutions — perhaps to its positive defence. 

The call of humanity and of Christ our Lord is the great, 
imperative consideration, the grand, all-powerful motive for 
action. Shall it not be heard ? It belongs to no section — to 
no party. It cannot recognize geographical lines. Humanity 
lives everywhere. Christ's truth is the law for all souls and 
all climes. 

Shall not the call be obeyed ? Rather, we ask, .who will 
presume to neglect or disobey it ? We do not insist upon 
special methods of action. We only insist that the protest be 
decided and clear — in the name of humanity ; in the infinitely 
greater name of Almighty God. Let the action be Christian in 
its gentleness, but Christian also in its fidelity. Shall the citi- 
zens of a nation whose foundation was laid upon the doctrine 
of Human Rights, practically sanction the idea which a dis- 
tinguished statesman has advanced with a daring consistency, 
" that the great thought of the Declaration of Independence is 
a fiction ; " or shall we vindicate that Christian doctrine by a 
consistent obedience ? Shall this land be the last asylum of 
slavery when driven from other nations. Christian and un- 
christian, with execrations, or shall it be truly free ? Shall we 
cling to the sin amidst the increasing light of ages, or trample 
it beneath our feet in the love of liberty, and of man ? 

Will such a call prevail ? As God liveth, it cannot fail. 
The world is filled with signs of hope. The idea of human 
rights shakes every throne. Freedom is becoming the omnipo- 
tent word. The shouts of the emancipated are heard from the 
isles of the sea, and across the ocean. The sacred contest for 
freedom is begun in our own land. There can be no defeat, 
except through unfaithfulness. It does not become t^e disci- 
ples of the Christian faith to question the supreme power of 
simple truth, when the whole history of their religion attests it 
— when its grand purpose is to pour the Spirit of the Lord into 
the souls of all his followers, as the life of the vine flows into 
all its branches. 



In the spirit of Freedom, then, which animated our Fathers, 
and in the name and for the glory of Christ, " who died that 
we might live," — it well becomes the Convention of the Con- 



m 

gregational Ministers of this ancient Commonwealth, solemnly 
to declare to the world their deep conviction of the injustice 
AND INHUMANITY of the systcm of Slavery, and of its absolute 
repugnance to all the principles of the Word of God : 
and to implore those who are implicated in it — by their fear 
of God and their love of man — to break their own bonds, by 
using their best exertions to give liberty to all captives. And 
may "the Father of lights " and "of mercies" hasten the day, 
when, "in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ," 
the choral anthem of our land and of the whole world may be, 
with joy and gratitude unspeakable, — " Where the Spirit of 
the Lord is, there is Liberty ! " 

CHARLES LOWELL. 
CALVIN HITCHCOCK. 
RICHARD S. STORRS. 
JAMES W. THOMPSON. 
SAMUEL M. WORCESTER. 
GEORGE W. BRIGGS. 
ALONZO HILL. 
SAMUEL K. LOTHROP. 



APPEiNDlX. 



An extract from the " Madison Papers," relative to the right of 
suffrage, will illustrate the spirit of the Convention of 1787. 

Mr. King wished to know what influence the vote just passed was 
meant to have on the succeeding part of the Report, concerning the 
admission of slaves into the rule of representation. He could not 
reconcile his mind to the Article, if it was to prevent objections to the 
latter part. The admission of slaves was a most grating circumstance 
to his mind, and he believed would be so to a great part of the people 
of America. He had not made a strenuous opposition to it hereto- 
fore, because he had hoped that this concession would have produced 
a readiness, which had not been manifested, to strengthen the General 
Government, and to mark a full confidence in it. The Report under 
consideration had, by the tenor of it, put an end to all those hopes. 
In two great points the hands of the Legislature were absolutely tied. 
The importation of slaves could not be prohibited. Exports could not 
be taxed. Is this reasonable ? What are the great objects of the 
general system ? First, defence against foreign invasion ; secondly, 
against internal sedition. Shall all the States, then, be bound to de- 
fend each, and shall each be at liberty to introduce a weakness which 
will render defence more difficult? Shall one part of the Ufiited 
States be bound to defend another part, and that other part be at lib- 
erty, not only to increase its own danger, but to withhold the compen- 
sation for the burden? If slaves are to be imported, shall not the 
exports produced by their labor supply a revenue the better to enable 
the General Government to defend their masters ? There was so much 
inequality and unreasonableness in all this, that the people of the 
Northern States could never be reconciled to it. No candid man 
could undertake to justify it to them. He had hoped that some accom- 
modation would have taken place on this subject ; that at least a time 
would have been limited for the importation of slaves. He never could 
agree to let them be imported without limitation, and then be repre- 
sented in the National Legislature. Indeed, he could so little per- 
suade himself of the rectitude of such a practice, that he was not 
sure he could assent to it under any circumstances. At all events, 
either slaves should not be represented, or exports should be taxable. 

Mr. Sherman regarded the slave trade as iniquitous ; but the point 
of representation having been settled after much difficulty and deliber- 



91 

ation, he did not think himself bo«-nd to make opposition ; especially 
as the present Article, as amended, did not prech)de any arrangement 
whatever on that point, in another place of the Report. 

Mr. Madison objected to one for every forty thousand inhabitants as 
a perpetual rule. The future increase of popidation, if the Union 
should be permanent, will render the number of Representatives 
excessive. 

Mr. Gorhain. It is not to be supposed tliat the Government will 
last so long as to produce this eiVect. Can it be snppo.-ed that this 
vast country, including the western territory, will, one hundred ;ind 
fifty years hence, remain one nation 1 

Mr. Ellsworth. If the Government should continue so long, alter- 
ations may be made in the Constitution in the manner proposed in a 
subsequent article. 

Mr. Sherman and Mr. Madison moved to insert the words, " not 
exceeding," before the words, "one for every forty thousand ;" which 
was agreed to, 7icm. con. 

Mr. Gouverneur Morris moved to insert "free" before the word 
" inhabitants." Much, he said, would depend on this point. He 
never would concur in upholding domestic slavery. It was a nefarious 
institution. It was the curse of Heaven on the States where it pre- 
vailed. Compare the free regions of tiie Middle States, where a rich 
and noble cultivation marks the prosperity and happiness of the peo- 
ple, with the misery and poverty which overspread the barren wastes 
of Virginia, Maryland, and the other States having slaves. Travel 
through the whole continent, and you behold the prospect continually 
varying with the appearance and disappearance of slavery. Tiie mo- 
ment you leave the Eastern States, and enter New York, the etVects of 
the institution become visible. Passing through the Jerseys and en- 
tering Pennsylvania, every criterion of superior improvement witnesses 
the change. Proceed southwardly, and every step you take, through 
the great regions of slaves, presents a desert increasing with the in- 
creasing proportion of these wretched beings. Upon what principle is 
it that the slaves shall be computed in the representation ? Are they 
men ? Then make them citizens, and let them vote. Are they 
property? Why, then, is no other property included? The houses 
in this city (Philadelphia) are worth more than all the wretched slaves 
who cover the rice swamps of South Carolina. The admission of 
slaves into the representation, when fairly explained, comes to this, 
that the inhabitant of Georgia and South (Carolina who goes to the 
coast of Africa, and, in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity, 
tears away his fellow creatures from their dearest connections, and 
damns them to the most cruel l)ondage, shall have more votes in a 
goverimient instituted for the protection of the rights of mankind, 
than the citizen of Pennsylvania or New Jersey, who \iews with a 
laudable horror so nefarious a [)ractice. He would add, that flomestic 
slavery is the most prominent feature in the aristocratic countenance 
of the proposed Constitution. The vassalage of the poor has ever 
been the favorite offspring of aristocracy. And what is the proposed 
compensation to the Northern States, for a sacrifice of every principle 
of right, of every impulse of humanity ? They are to bind themselves 
to march their militia for the defence of the Southern States, for their 



92 

defence against those very slaves of whom they complain. They 
must supply vessels and seamen, in case of foreign attack. The Leg- 
islature will have indefinite power to tax them by excises, and duties 
on imports; both of which will fall heavier on them than on the South- 
ern inhabitants ; for the bohea tea used by a Northern freeman will 
pay more tax than the whole consumption of the miserable slave, 
which consists of nothing more than his physical subsistence and the 
rag that covers his nakedness. On the other side, the Southern States 
are not to be restrained from importing fresh supplies of wretched 
Africans, at once to increase the danger of attack, and the difficulty 
of defence ; nay, they are to be encouraged to it, by an assurance of 
having their votes in the National Government increased in propor- 
tion ; and are, at the same time, to have their exports and their slaves 
exempt from all contributions for the public service. Let it not be 
said, that direct taxation is to be proportioned to representation. It is 
idle to suppose that the General Government can stretch its hand 
directly into the pockets of the people, scattered over so vast a country. 
They can only do it through the medium of exports, imports and ex- 
cises. For what, then, are all the sacrifices to be made? He would 
sooner submit himself to a tax for paying for all the negroes in the 
United States, than saddle posterity with such a Constitution. 

Mr. Dayton seconded the motion. He did it, he said, that his sen- 
timents on the subject might appear, whatever might be the fate of the 
amendment. 

Mr. Sherman did not regard the admission of the negroes into the 
ratio of representation, as liable to such insuperable objections. It 
was the freemen of the Southern States who were, in fact, to be rep- 
resented according to the taxes paid by them, and the negroes are only 
included in the estimate of the taxes. This was his idea of the 
matter. 

Mr. Pinckney considered the fisheries, and the Western frontier, as 
more burthensome to the United States than the slaves. He thought 
this could be demonstrated, if the occasion were a proper one. 

Mr. Wilson thought the motion premature. An agreement to the 
clause would be no bar to the object of it. 

On the question, on the motion to insert "free" before " inhabi- 
tants," — New Jersey, aye — 1 ; New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Con- 
necticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, 
South Carolina, Georgia, no — 10. — Madison Papers, pp. 1261-66. 



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